


With pulses that beat double

by aesc, pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 19th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Artists, Blow Jobs, Childhood Friends, Class Differences, Flashbacks, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:15:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 39,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1007998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesc/pseuds/aesc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been thirteen years since Charles watched his beloved childhood companion walk out of his life. Now, in fin-de-siècle Paris, a chance overheard remark may lead them to each other's sides once more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We did another thing! This comes from an exchange on Tumblr, when pearlo [posted a thing](http://theletteraesc.tumblr.com/post/62686561801/pearlo-theletteraesc-pearlo) about artist!Erik in some turn-of-the-century garrett, and as things tend to happen with us, events devolved from there.
> 
> Special notes: Although everyone still has powers in this AU, those powers are reduced. Charles can get a general sense of what people are thinking and Erik can flip coins/move small objects around. Also, there is a hint of underaged-ness (where Erik is seventeen and Charles is fourteen), only referenced in flashback or dialogue, never acted on.
> 
> The title comes from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "[Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand](http://www.bartleby.com/361/404.html)," in _Sonnets from the Portuguese_.

"Do you think," Raven murmured, not moving her gaze from the flawless curve of the statue's torso, "that man over there will die of shock or disapproval?"

"I'm sure you're hoping for both."

The man in question wore grey hair and jowls hanging heavily over his collar and an air of affronted propriety. Charles perceived that last as a faint aura, a yellow-green distinct from the afternoon light pouring through the windows of the gallery. Thoughts whispered in his ears, or the impressions of thoughts, their possibilities. The man thought of how improper it was for a girl that age, an impressionable seventeen, to be staring so boldly at such a lush expanse of naked marble, and to be doing so in the company of a young man.

"She was not demure, was she?" Raven asked. Her pale gold eyes fixed on the Venus' face. The de Milo's own gaze had fixed itself in the distance, calmly staring at whoever had caught her attention. Raven grinned. "What do you think, Charles? That robe could slip only a little..."

"Raven!"

The disapproving man, now joined by his wife, her own disapproval trailing out behind her like the train of her dress, departed down the gallery, their footsteps rising up to the vaulted ceilings. With her solitude restored, and her brother reduced to blushes, both Raven's goals had been accomplished, and she returned to studying the Venus. Charles, unmoved by cold grey marble and opulently feminine flesh, turned his attention to the rest of the men and women in the gallery, the flickers of their silent and spoken conversation filling the spaces above the statues and paintings.

The crowd seemed fairly evenly mixed between those who, like Raven, seemed to be there in appreciation of the artwork before them, and those who, like Charles himself, had been dragged along. Whiffs of boredom drifted from a few people, though others were entertaining themselves fully with quiet whispers of gossip passed back and forth. The acoustics of the hall made many of the conversations easy to overhear, and Charles let his mind wander as he listened to the discussions in English and French of artistic technique, of history, of yesterday's parties and tomorrow's dinners.

And then he heard a word that broke through his haze. He stiffened suddenly, his hand tightening on Raven's arm where he held her, causing her to give him a curious look.

"Charles?"

"Shhh," Charles said softly, turning to look in the direction from whence the word – the name – had come.

The men stood only a few feet away from them; one of them, elaborately mustachioed, was still speaking. "You must see him, truly. The whole town is talking about his work these days; he's really making a name for himself. Not a master yet, naturally, but the potential is there..."

Charles let go of Raven and stepped the few feet towards the other conversation. Interrupting the man and inserting himself into a stranger's conversation was unjustifiably rude, and in any other circumstances Charles couldn't imagine doing so, but—that was a name he had not heard in a decade. One indelibly inked on his heart. He had to know.

"Excuse me," Charles said, clearing his throat. The men looked at him with surprise; though their expressions stayed polite, beneath Charles sensed their judgment of his lack of propriety. "Could you tell me the name of the painter you were just discussing?"

"Yes, of course," said the man with the mustache. "Erik Lehnsherr."

"Ah." Charles fought to stay as tranquil as the lounging marble boy in front of him. The men glanced tellingly at each other and one of them asked, more pointedly, "Did you require any further information, sir?" Charles did not, and, excusing himself as gracefully as he could, rejoined Raven by the Venus.

"Charles?" Raven, distracted from her meditation, guided him over to a niche, a small stone bench hidden behind the Venus' shadows and under a sheltering ledge. "Charles, something's the matter."

His first thought was to deny it, and he did, with all the self-command he had acquired under his mother's demanding eye. Raven made a sound of deep, unladylike exasperation and, with a commanding pressure exerted on his arm, refused to let him stand to resume their tour until he explained himself more fully. "It was those men you were speaking to," she insisted. "Did you know them? What were you speaking of?"

"Nothing important. I thought I had recognized one of them; I was wrong." Charles stared down at his hands, square and solid, resting in his lap. Cuffs brushed the wrists very properly, fastened with links of silver, appropriate for an afternoon out touring the museums with his sister for company. They would need changing for the evening if they went out to dinner at a hotel or one of the restaurants along the golden strand of the Champs Élysées.

 _Stupid_ , Erik had said once, hovering in the shadows of Charles's room. The maid had gone to fetch his clothes for the evening; Charles, even at ten, had been expected to dress for dinner when his mother arrived to visit, the anarchy of her absence brushed under the rug for the few days she stayed in the New Salem house. _She won't see you anyway, she doesn't care you're here_ , Erik would continue, and the fledgling flickers of the strange knowledge Charles had about other thoughts told him what Erik meant: that he wanted Charles in the little kitchen with Erik and his mother, that Charles belonged with them and not in the great, empty dining room with only his mother's silent disappointment for company.

They had been young enough then that Erik would still accept his embraces, and Charles had held him close, holding on until Erik's stiff posture had loosened. They had remained that way until the maid had come back and noticed Erik and chased him away back downstairs while she helped Charles dress. Charles had spent dinner staring at his plate, and afterward in the front parlor he had stared silently at his shoes while his mother ignored him, and he had thought about Erik and his mother and wished he were with them instead.

"You know I can tell when you are lying to me," Raven said, the gentleness in her voice not unalloyed with impatience. 

Charles forced himself to smile at her. "Really, it's nothing, darling. I was merely caught by surprise." He brushed a non-existent speck of dust off his knee and stood up, offering his arm to her once more. "Shall we continue?"

The familiar face she made told him that she was still unsatisfied with his answer, but she took his arm nonetheless, letting him guide her toward the statues once more. As Raven turned her attention back to the art before her, Charles found himself distracted once more. This time, however, the entire museum might as well have been empty, for nothing, no one, else existed for him except in his racing thoughts.

 _Erik_. Erik was here, in Paris. Erik was a painter, and a successful one, apparently—although that last did not surprise Charles. He had always known Erik was brilliant, that he could be spectacular at anything he decided to do. 

He had to see them. Even if Charles could never see Erik again, he could at least see his work. It would have to be enough.

* * *

Raven had to be removed almost forcibly from the museum. She refused to leave without one last look at the Nike of Samothrace, which left Charles to summon their carriage and hope Raven did not attract a scandal merely by standing there, or offering an outlandish observation to the other museum-goers and artists sitting at the statue's feet. The sight of her when he returned, a still figure in her own drapery of silver grey and lace, steadied his breath, and the rest of him.

"We'll need to hurry to dress," he reminded her once they were in the carriage. Raven replied with a muttered comment on the lateness of Parisian dining and then her loathing of having to change clothes only to spend yet more hours in a corset. Erik would have liked Raven, Charles decided, and bit his lip against the bitterness of that thought.

The horses clattered westward along the street fronting the Seine—Raven twisted around to catch sight of Notre Dame's great spire—and into the setting sun. The sunset gilded the other carriages and the horses' sweating haunches, the trees and the iron fencing surrounding the garden of the Tuileries. Charles watched the pedestrians amble along, ladies arm-in-arm with each other or their husbands. The air was aromatic with horse and the late summery ripeness of the Seine and the ranks of trees and flowers, undercut by a new scent—petrol, the exhaust from the few cars growling like lions among the carriages. Raven watched the cars with interest and a not-so-passing comment about taking one into the countryside.

Charles answered her with half a mind to his words. He watched the faces of the men and women on the street, looking for one with cheekbones sharp-planed and harsh, and vigilant grey eyes, and told himself not to be ridiculous. He had last laid eyes on Erik more than a decade ago, and while he could not imagine Erik ever changing, thirteen years must change even the most stubborn boy—they had certainly changed Charles—and he felt that, with the time and the distance, if he should chance to see Erik, his eyes would pass over him as over a stranger.

And that would be a lie. Charles might try (and fail) to deceive Raven, but he could not deceive himself. They drove on through the Champs Élysées into the solitude of the Avenue Gabriel, with the long, quiet lawns and gardens of the estates drowsing behind their granite walls. Their own house, the Hôtel Goscelin, sat even further back than the other houses around it, its columns and archways almost lost in the dim light under the trees. Raven had complained about its retirement, a private house instead of a hotel closer to the heart of the city, but then had remembered Charles's aversion to large crowds when they were inescapable, and had mercifully fallen silent.

If she could hear him now, wondering how soon he could get back out to ask information on a long-lost boy from any likely person he could find, she would laugh.

"It is very beautiful here," Raven said, as the carriage came to a stop. It was said with a fair amount of consideration, as if Raven had been withholding her judgment until now, giving herself time to consider all the facts, time to make up her own mind rather than taking for granted the common opinion.

"It is," Charles agreed, helping her down to the ground. Even as he turned to gaze upon the facade of their home, it was the estate in Westchester he saw instead, rising majestically in his mind as clear as anything. 

It was not the only property Mother and Father had owned, of course. There was the summer house on the coast of Rhode Island, the townhouse in the city, the mansion up in the mountains that they always referred to as _the cabin_ —any number of residences that the two of them, and later Mother on her own, had lived in, traveling from one to another as the seasons changed and fashion dictated. But it was the estate—brought over from England, brick by brick and stone by stone, by Grandfather Xavier decades before—where they had placed Charles, with the excuse that his constitution was too delicate, his nerves too sensitive for him to stay with them. 

In retrospect, Charles saw it as a convenient excuse; their lack of interest in him was total, and he was only a distraction from their true enjoyments, the society in which they traveled. If Charles had been too young then to know to keep his strangeness to himself, all the more reason for them to keep him at a distance.

But that house... It was where he had grown up, the background of his childhood. With the exception of a few weeks in the summers, when he was sent away to the lake for fear of the heat, he spent his childhood there, from the age of four until he left for Oxford at age seventeen. There was no moment of that time, no inch of that property, that was not impossibly tied up with his memories of Erik. They had always been together, then, after all.

It was a shameful relief to separate from Raven and head to his room. Charles preferred to dress himself; he had the impression that the French manservant took it as an odd quirk, but also that he was used to indulging the whims of whatever strange Englishmen he found himself serving. The room was empty, though Charles' change of wardrobe had been lain out carefully for him.

He was tempted to take his time disrobing and changing, to guard this time alone, where he could give his thoughts free rein. But no; that was foolishness, wasn't it?

 _Why should you be so eager to learn about him?_ A young boy's affronted pride rose up in him, a hot, sick rush. He paused, fingers frozen on the button of his shirt. His reflection in the dressing mirror had its brow furrowed, a blush of shame and anger on its cheeks. _He cast you off long ago. You shouldn't want this. You should have stopped wanting this long ago._

Charles shook himself and returned to undressing, moving through the routine and forcing his mind to move ahead to the rest of the evening. Raven would want to talk about the day and they would need to plan for tomorrow. The long-deferred visit to Lady Katherine could be deferred no longer; Raven would have to tolerate Lady Katherine's attempts to show off her eldest son for the duration of a half-morning, and to be civil while doing so. He would have to point out that he had reserved a visit to the new Gare d'Orsay, to tour the splendid railway station on its perch by the Seine, and so any invitations to tea or supper could be safely, and civilly, deferred.

Erik would not have bothered with civility. For that matter, he would simply have refused to go where he had no desire to be. Charles snorted, shaking his head as if to shake the thoughts of Erik out of his head.

And that would be why he, despite himself, was even now making plans to leave early on the morrow, to give himself time to search out some of the exclusive art galleries and dealers between their house and the Lady Katherine's residence on the Rue St.-Honore, by the Royal Palace. Erik had woven himself into his life, knitted himself into Charles's very bones and nerves and brain, and perhaps—Charles told himself this firmly—he could begin to untie Erik from himself if he could see, for sure, that Erik was well and happy as Erik could ever be.

He pulled his clothes off and began to exchange them for dinner jacket and tie. Raven's complaints rose to a loud whisper in his mind, nearly audible in her dislike of her corsets, rising in rebellion before cutting out into silence.

Erik had been much the same. Strange, that his first memory was not of his parents, but Erik, a strange, solemn boy gazing at him defiantly from his perch on the granite balustrade along the southern portico of the house. It had been late spring, the world alive all over. The old cook had left only the day before, sent off with a pension and the family's indifferent thanks, and the new one had arrived. The change, to a small boy, was both inscrutable and momentous, and he had not even known that one aspect of the change would be a slim, pale-eyed boy, rather taller than himself.

 _Hello_ , Charles had said, and the strange boy, the air around him colored with surprise and resentment, said nothing.

 _My name is Charles_ , he had continued. 

The boy had responded to that, at least. _I know who you are_ , he said. _You're the young master_. There was something in the way he said the last words that made Charles feel awkward and a little embarrassed, though he had no idea why. 

He decided to climb up and join the boy where he sat, but the boy had jumped up in surprise as Charles began his attempt to hoist himself up on the heavy stone. _Don't do that_ , the boy said fiercely. _You're just a baby. You are going to hurt yourself and ruin your clothes and then I'll be the one who gets punished._

 _I am_ not a baby Charles answered scornfully, and he managed, finally, to shove himself up onto the perch. There was little room up there, barely enough for one small boy, let alone two, and Charles's balance was unsteady as he tried to raise himself up to stand. 

The boy let out a sigh—exasperation now, rather than contempt—and pulled Charles down to sit in his lap, arms wrapped around Charles's belly to hold him fast. _You almost fell, you silly fool._

Charles scowled at the insult and bit the boy's arm and then, at that, the boy had burst into a peal of laughter, light and sweet, if short-lived. 

He had turned in the boy's lap so he could see his face, rather than the view of the ground below. _I didn't know any other boys lived here_ , Charles said. _You have to be my friend now. Tell me your name_.

Charles could not remember what Erik's response was; the memory ended there. Nor could he remember the first time he went down to the kitchens and met Mrs. Lehnsherr. His memory was very good as a rule, and there was very little after the age of six he could not recall in almost perfect detail, but much of that early childhood had faded into a long series of afternoons, sun-dappled and warm, exploring and playing on the grounds or eating sweet treats in the dim, cozy kitchen. 

His own personal Eden, in a way, Charles supposed, though even now he could not be certain what was responsible for the fall. But the sanctuary had been invaded, at the some point; the rest of the world found its way into their fortress, and things developed from there.

Charles finished dressing. In the mirror before him he saw a gentlemen, well-costumed, well-fed, well-educated. He should not have to remind himself how lucky he was in every way that mattered, he thought, rather irritated with himself. 

It was useless to lose himself in these reminiscences. Better instead to turn his thoughts to Raven. This voyage was for her, after all, to help her grow into an accomplished, distinguished young lady, to give her the opportunities she deserved to develop her talents. She was Charles's responsibility now, and he was determined to do his best by her, anything better than the attention paid to her before.

Raven greeted him at the door to the dining room, radiating exasperation. "Charles, it is _too_ ridiculous. Only the two of us are dining, and I am sure _Monsieur Hardin_ has seen far, far worse than a lady not in—"

"Leave it be, Raven," Charles sighed. "All is well."

"Except for you," Raven said. She attached herself to his arm, not letting go until he had stopped by her chair. Even then, she did not sit down straight away, but fixed him with a searching look, the more penetrating and unnerving for her pale gold eyes. Charles pretended to ignore it, and eventually Raven capitulated with a groan and an unladylike descent into the chair Charles had pulled out for her.

"I will have it out of you." The butler began to pour the wine, and the servant entered with the first course, and had the soup in its bowls and placed on the table in the ensuing silence. "Please, Charles, for a moment stop pretending you must always take care of me and speak to me as if I'm worthy of knowing your secrets."

Charles didn't dare pick up his spoon to start eating. Her words had struck home, square on the target, quivering against what he had only just resolved concerning Raven and her happiness. He did not, however, dare to start speaking until the butler had seen the second course prepared and in the chafing dish. "Hardin," he said, waiting until the old man seemed satisfied with his work, "if you could leave us? Miss Xavier and I will serve ourselves. I'll ring when we're ready for dessert."

Hardin, like Villiers, absorbed his employer's strangeness without a word, objections concerning propriety swallowed back and leaving his wrinkled face as undisturbed as a deep pool. Charles heard the question and said, "No, thank you, the dish is fine where it is. I'll serve Miss Xavier and myself. Thank you again."

That was more difficult for Hardin to receive with equanimity, but he did, and with a _bon appetit, monsieur, mademoiselle_ that betrayed nothing of his confusion at his employer anticipating his question, left the room.

The dish on the sideboard gave Charles the excuse to stand and escape from Raven's scrutiny by serving both of them. He deliberately lifted the lid from the chafing dish, the rich scent of beef and sauce insignificant, and picked up the spoon.

"Charles!" Raven snapped.

"A friend of mine," Charles said. He set the spoon down again. "I... I heard something of an old friend, at the Louvre today."

Raven's mind was racing through the names of their acquaintance. It was not an inconsiderable list, for the connections the Xavier family maintained in America and Europe were extensive, decades-old webs of association with the great families of the world. But of that great list.... Raven's thoughts faltered, slowing. No name she knew could account for Charles's evasiveness, or the painful confusion she had seen in him since the afternoon. She knew his opinions on the nature of their acquaintances did not lend themselves to this reaction.

"You would not be familiar with him," Charles said, interrupting her thoughts. "I have not seen him or heard from him in many years. He was... he was the son of my family's cook, in Westchester. We were very close as boys."

The words sounded so small and insignificant as they fell from his mouth. They were perfectly true, and yet they did not at all seem to do justice to the history, to what Erik had meant to him.

"I see," Raven said. Charles turned to see her watching him with a furrowed brow and narrowed eyes.

"I suppose I knew you must have had friends before me," Raven said after a moment, "but I must admit it never truly crossed my mind before. For how amiable you are, I don't believe I've ever seen you become intimate with anyone."

Charles bit his lip and allowed himself to concentrate on serving himself and Raven. She waited until he was seated once more in his chair before pursuing the matter further.

"What news did you hear of him? Is he a servant here in Paris, then?"

"No," Charles said. 

_I don't understand why you must leave_ , Charles had said, curled up in the top branch of their favorite climbing tree. _You could stay here. Ripley could train you so you could be my man when you grow up. We could be together forever._

Erik had refused to look at him, but the rage and trapped, desperate desire had come off him in waves, so sharp Charles could almost taste it. Everything Erik had felt in those days had been that way; when Charles confided in Mrs. Lehnsherr she had put it down simply to Erik's age, advising that Charles would understand in another year or two, but Charles felt there must be something deeper. 

_No_ , Erik had said then, low and fierce. _I would rather die. I am going to be my own man, Charles, no matter what._

"He is an artist," Charles said.

A gleam came into Raven's golden eyes. "Truly? Is he here in the city? What medium does he work in? What style? Who are his associates?"

Charles waved away the barrage of questions. "I do not know! You know as much as I do, now. I do... I intend to find out more. I should like to see his work."

"Then that is what we shall do," Raven said. She had the subject firmly in her teeth now, tearing Charles mercilessly between the past, the present, tomorrow. "Surely the renewal of an old acquaintance is more than sufficient—"

"You will have to give my regrets to Lady Katherine. No," he added at the mutiny flashing in Raven's eyes and in her thoughts. "Raven, I _will_ go alone, this once. I cannot explain it to you—this is not refusal; I _cannot_ —but I must do this on my own. Erik was my only friend for a very long time, and we did not part well. I would like to lay his spirit to rest in the absence of questions."

Raven stared at him, anger bringing out a rose-red blush on her cheeks, anger for his tone and his dismissal of her questions as childish and intrusive. Once, Charles had been much like her, too many questions and thoughts, and not enough sense to keep them to himself.

Erik's words had hit him as if Erik himself had struck him, as if Charles had been a bird shot down by the gamekeeper's bullet. _I would rather die_ , Erik said, and that was all Charles heard as he scrambled down from the tree, tearing his new trousers (and he remembered, now, with Raven staring at him, they had just come from the city), and pelted up to his room. Erik had not followed him, and so had not given Charles the pleasure of slamming the door in his face. _Leave, then, if you hate being with me so much you'd rather die_ , he had thought as viciously, as hard as he could, and felt a soft, bitter retreating, Erik withdrawing and closing himself up in iron.

He had refused to speak to Erik for the rest of the week.

On that Sunday morning, Erik was gone, and for the first time in his memory, Charles was alone.

"I apologize," he said softly. The smell of the food on his plate had gone wrong, overripe and unappetizing. "Please, Raven, I will answer what I can, when I can, but for now, I must beg you to forgive me. For this and," he set his napkin down, "I find I'm not well. Too much art today, I expect."

Raven said nothing in return. Her anger was obvious in her pursed lips and the flush that still stained her cheeks, over and beyond the disappointment Charles could feel emanating from her. Concern hovered at the periphery of her thoughts; she batted it away, withdrawing into her dissatisfaction.

Charles rose from his seat. He paused briefly by her chair, torn, before pressing a soft kiss to her cheek, and then he left the room, retreating to his chambers.

Most nights he read before bed. He was happy to leave the university in order to travel with Raven, but he meant to go back one day, and so it was important to keep current with the journals and books, as well as the correspondence with his peers. Tonight he could not; there was no concentration in him for such things, not when his mind refused to focus on anything but these memories and nerves.

To sleep, then, early as it was. Perhaps his head would be clearer in the morning.

* * *

The sun had not yet risen when Charles awoke—or, rather, it had, but thick grey clouds hid its light and drowned the world in a dreary indifference. He heard the steady patter of the rain against the glass of the window, and when he rose from the bed and pulled the thick curtains aside he saw nothing but grey in any direction. It was set to be a miserable day, he thought, all wetness and mud.

He went through the motions of his morning in a haze of lost time and inattention. Afterward he could barely remember eating his breakfast, being shaved, or even informing Hardin he would require the carriage. It was only the ride coming to a halt that seemed to shake him out of his inner world, and he stepped out of the carriage onto the slick sidewalk, breathing in deeply.

Thirteen years, Charles thought. Almost half his life! Surely that should be long enough for him to forget, or at least accept. He did not think of Erik so often these days, only at odd moments when his memories were unguarded. It seemed unfair that with a single mention, Erik should suddenly dominate his thoughts like this now, just as firmly as he had back then. 

Charles had thought himself abandoned when Erik left, but he hadn't realized then that was more of Erik to lose. At least in those first years, Erik had written. Every month when his letters arrived, Charles would join Mrs. Lehnsherr in the kitchen, sitting on a stool beside the table and reading aloud to her while she kneaded bread dough or cooked soup. There was always another note, too, for Charles alone. 

As soon as Charles left for Oxford, though, the letters stopped coming. To this day, Charles hadn't the slightest idea what caused the change.

His first Michaelmas term had passed, and then the holidays spent at his great-uncle's house in London, and then Hilary term had come. On his arrival in Oxford that first September, he had written Erik with the direction to his rooms near Pembroke, very nearly the first thing he had done after unpacking his writing desk and finding pen and ink. He had written again in November, first to Erik's last address in Boston and then home to Ripley, asking that he forward Charles's address to Erik, if Erik had kept in touch.

 _I would rather die_ , Erik had said. Even at the time, a foolish and romantic sixteen, Charles had known the only forces tethering Erik to Westchester had been his mother and Charles, an unruly comet chained to its orbit. When Mrs. Lehnsherr had died, one of those chains had broken, and, Charles thought bitterly, whatever hold he had had on Erik—whatever affection, whatever good memory—must have dissolved away.

Would that his own chains dissolved so quickly. Charles watched the Tuileries creep by, the flowers and trees now drab, subdued by the rain. The carriage turned south on the Pont Royal, which arced lazily over the flat, grey Seine, Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle distant and shrouded in low cloud. Charles watched the wet backs of the horses going by, and the rain-glossed black carriages like beetles crawling. When the driver turned left again, smaller, closer buildings surrounded them, gentlemen and ladies under umbrellas crowding on the sidewalk, their damp finery standing out like the feathers of exotic birds among the paint-stained, bedraggled men who lived and worked in the Quai Voltaire.

"Sennelier, monsieur?" It was the footman, peering in at him.

"Yes, thank you." After a brief struggle, Charles assumed command of the umbrella and dismissed the carriage. The driver and footman exchanged dissatisfied looks, but obeyed. The near-side horse shook its head, as if joining in the criticism.

The art supplies shop—for that was what Sennelier's was, shop and throbbing heart of the artist community in Paris—was the first stop; the École des Beaux Arts, its huge classical portico rearing in the distance, was the second should the clerks and artists of Sennelier have no information. They must; it seemed impossible they wouldn't, for Charles could not imagine Erik being in any place, brilliant as he was, where no one would take notice of him.

He straightened his shoulders and pushed forward towards the shop. His first sensation, upon entering, was simply the cessation of the cold and wet of the outdoors, followed shortly by the great variety of smells of the supplies, some familiar from Raven's work and some wholly new, chemical or earthy in turns, though none of them unpleasant. Finally, he was struck by that cloud of thoughts and emotions that always came with a good number of people in a relatively small space, piling up on each other like thunderheads. 

One of the clerks spotted him immediately. Charles was well aware he stood out from their normal clientele, but his fine clothes were their own appeal; nothing pleased a shopkeeper so much as a man who looked as if he had plenty of coin to spend. The clerk was obviously well-practiced in summing up such possibilities, eyeing Charles quickly before crossing the floor to greet him. 

"How may I help you, Monsieur?" the man said, bowing slightly.

Charles took off his hat, shaking his head slightly, causing a few stray rivulets of water to drip below his collar and down his neck. "I am seeking information on an artist," he said. "Can you tell me about a Mr. Erik Lehnsherr?"

The clerk raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Of course, of course. Monsieur is in luck, in fact; M. Lehnsherr was here just this morning."

Charles's breath caught in his chest, a painful clench like a hand around his heart. "Ah," he forced out, words thick. "Do you know—" He had to stop in the middle of the sentence, and try once more from the beginning. "Do you know where I might find him?"

"One might try M. Guyot's gallery," the man suggested. "The two of them have worked together for some time now."

"Can you give me directions there?" Charles said. The expression on the man's face, as well as his aura, made it clear that Charles was being too eager, too abrupt, but he couldn't bring himself to care, not now. He curled his fingers into a fist, letting his nails press hard into the tender skin of his palm, as a reminder to himself.

 _Get off_ , Erik had said, but he was laughing as he did it, swatting at Charles playfully as Charles jumped up, hanging on him and trying to give him hugs and kisses. He had always been taller than Charles, of course, three years older as he was, and it was always Charles's firm wish to grow up faster, to catch up with him, though he never managed it; thus he had to climb on Erik instead.

 _Erik, Erik_ , Charles said breathlessly, _I missed you so much!_

 _You've only been gone a few weeks_ , Erik pointed out, but his mind was radiating so much affection and relief that Charles knew his absence had been just as painful for Erik as for him. _I thought you were swimming and eating ice cream every day up there at the cabin._

 _I'd never be so lucky_. Mother thought him too delicate and too much in danger of drowning to swim, and was suspicious of ice cream and the treats Mrs. Lehnsherr made despite her objections. Charles did not say this, and believed he did not communicate it to Erik, but Erik's bright thoughts darkened anyway, as if turning away from the sun. Not wanting Erik to retreat into seriousness so swiftly, Charles added, _But Mother's leaving next week for Newport, and we'll have to go to the pond when we've got rid of her._

With a final squeeze, Charles had released Erik and asked to go say hello to Mrs. Lehnsherr. Erik did not stray far; he had stayed close as Charles told Mrs. Lehnsherr about his trip, until Charles was summoned upstairs to dress for dinner.

He had come back later, Charles remembered, using his remarkable ability to open the door to Charles's bedroom without a sound, and they had talked for hours, until Charles had fallen asleep.

"Do forgive me, M. Sennelier," he said. Sennelier, seeing a rain-splattered young man with too-earnest eyes and possibly quite a bit of money, seemed inclined to forgiveness. "We have heard, you must understand, nothing but the highest praise of his work, and I have been commissioned to acquire a piece."

"Ah! Well, Guyot will not forgive me if I keep back a paying customer." M. Sennelier gave him the direction to Guyot's gallery, and added, "Do not, however, ask to see M. Lehnsherr's atelier; he will not permit it, and if you attempt to buy your way in, he will not sell to you."

That final comment earned laughter from the artists who had gathered to eavesdrop. Sennelier scowled and waved them away. Charles, under the pretext of finding new pigments for Raven's oil paints and some fresh brushes, thanked him and retreated.

As he stared at the canvases and palettes that demonstrated the richness of the paints—the indigo, carmine, ultramarine, emerald, umber, the colors rich and riotous—Charles composed himself and resolved on a plan. M. Guyot was quite close, at the corner where the rue de Seine ran into the precincts of the abbey at St.-Germain. Really, given the address—the rue de Seine was not inexpensive, and for Erik to attract Guyot as a broker he must have done _very_ well—he ought to return home with oils and pigments and see to pacifying Raven. But no, go he must, to see for himself what Erik had achieved.

 _You're so good_ , Charles had breathed, watching Erik sketch on a scrap of paper he had scavenged from Ripley. When Erik protested that Charles had not had so much as a glimpse of what he was drawing, Charles ignored that and said, _I don't need to see it to know it's good, but I wish you'd let me look!_

Erik had refused to let Charles see, as he often did. Why Erik kept those few drawings back, when he shared so much else, Charles did not understand. He leaned in, in part trying to see but mostly wishing to provoke Erik into pushing at him and playing, breaking that serious, utter focus, and Erik had obliged him, but not without putting the drawing safely away from Charles's sight.

He picked out a selection of paints, almost randomly, for he had no real idea of what Raven might need or want; whatever he chose she was sure to mock him when he returned to the house later. Still, he felt a need to purchase something, whether or not it would ever be used, if only to compensate M. Sennelier for his time and information. Charles would have spent much more to learn less, if he were to be honest with himself.

Charles left his address with orders to have the package delivered this afternoon, and set out again into the rain, insulated once more by his umbrella's protective dome. The rain had only increased during his time in the shop, and had driven many off the pedestrians off the streets, though the streets were still far from empty. Charles enjoyed walking—it was a regular pastime of his, back home in New York, along with the people-watching and observing that went hand in hand with the activity for him. The daily dramas, joys and dilemmas of ordinary people fascinated him; of all the things his strange gift had allowed him, the ability to see a flash of the remarkable inner life of each person, people whom he would most likely never cross again, must be the most amazing.

Today, however, Charles might as well have been alone on the streets, for all the attention he spared the others around him. 

M. Guyot's gallery was on Raven's long list of places to visit while they were in the city; Charles had planned to make an appointment for the two of them some time in the next weeks. Would Charles have discovered Erik on his own, then, simply by waiting? Or would he have let his mind wander as he so often did when Raven absorbed herself in her studies, and missed his chance entirely? The thought that he could have been so close, and not even known what he missed...

Charles was a scientist. He did not believe in fate. Erik never had, either. When Charles's father had died, all of the adults had seemed to find comfort in murmuring clichés. _Everything happens for a reason_ , or _God has a plan for all of us._

Erik had found Charles in the attic where he had hidden after the funeral, still in his black suit, far more grown-up than anything he had ever worn before. Erik had sat down beside him in the dusty alcove and made no effort to comfort Charles at all. _There's no reason_ , Erik had said. _It doesn't work like that. There's people, and what they do, and there's luck, maybe, but that's all._

He had kindly ignored Charles's sniffles—what he had been crying over, Charles wasn't entirely sure, for he could count the number of times he remembered being in the same room as his father on his fingers—and let Charles curl up close against his side and stay there for a long time.

 _I don't have a father, either,_ Erik had said after a while. _We'll make our own society._

How Erik had proposed to form that society, he did not explain. Charles had imagined them taking over the old hunting lodge in the park, as no one ever used it (and had not in years; Mother hated hunting), and defending it against the adults, like the Knights of the Round Table in the books. They would, Charles had vowed in that moment, never be apart; they would be allies, friends, inseparable. Erik knew his secret, the ability to hear the thoughts of other people like whispers, and he knew Erik's, the secret power in him that made coins land the way he wanted them, and that secret—and so much more—bound them together.

He had been foolish back then. He'd had the excuse of youth, of course, but from the lofty age of nearly twenty-seven, Charles found forgiveness for his younger self impossible to grant. If he had not been so blinded, perhaps he might have seen that Erik was not for keeping, even by a boy who loved him, even if that boy might have been accustomed to having anything he wished.

As the rue de Seine slanted further away from its river namesake, Charles felt himself propelled onward, as if actuated by a force other than his own confused desire. Now that he had committed to this, despite the tightening knot of fear (fear that he would see Erik, fear that he would not), he could not stop; he rushed on, perhaps faster than propriety and the wet pavement dictated, until at last he arrived, breathless, at the huge walnut door and its discreet copper plaque that read _Guyot et Fils_.

The gallery lived in what must have been an old hôtel, its pale stone front and fluted columns an assertion of ancient richness next to newer buildings of brick belonging to other art dealers. The clock tower of the Abbaye St.-Germain frowned at him in the near distance; from closer by, the few pedestrians braving the weather watched him with rather more curiosity. The air around the gallery was electric, charged with fears and hopes that Charles felt must certainly be visible, be heard, be _felt_ , by the entire city. Charles closed his umbrella and, heedless of the lack of propriety in having not made an appointment and prepared to resort to money to maintain his presence in the gallery, stepped inside.

The foyer was empty, although Charles sensed several busy minds, some calculating, some absorbed, in the rooms further back. Despite the ill-breeding that attended penetrating so far into a private building without being greeted, Charles crossed to one half-open door and stepped through it.

Color greeted him, assertive, vibrant, living color, canvas upon canvas announcing itself with a richness and clarity at once extraordinary—supernatural—and yet of the world. Charles stepped closer to one canvas, a woman posing against a studio wall, a vase at her feet; the color of her body seemed to free her from the confines of her canvas, to enliven her roughly molded and textured limbs so she poised on the brink of a sudden, violent movement. The woman was not correct, having none of the proportions demanded by the classicists or the old masters, nor were the thick curls and lines that made up her face and hair beautiful. She was not the Venus of the Louvre, Charles decided. She was more.

She compelled the eye such that Charles did not immediately see the signature traced out in a dark blood-red in the corner.

It was almost illegible, but he knew the loops of that E, the long trailing tail of that L. This was Erik's work, then. Once he knew, it seemed inevitable that it should be so. Of course Erik's art would be bold, and modern, and uncomfortable, and brilliant, all at once. 

Charles stepped away with the canvas with some difficulty, and turned to another. A boy, this time—no, a young man—all sharp angles, lounging across an armchair, nude but for the fabric draped across his lap and thighs. His face was turned half-away from the viewer, his eyes closed and his mouth open to bite into the apple he held in his hand. There was a sumptuousness about the painting, luxurious, and yet matter-of-fact at the same time, an earthy sensuality that seemed all the more real for the striking style. 

Charles tried to imagine the painting in the parlor of some Parisian matron, set out where her guests could marvel and jealously admire her latest acquisition. The idea made him smile. No; this belonged in private chambers, somewhere where you could sit and gaze upon on it at your leisure, alone with your thoughts and the curve of that hip.

"Charles Xavier?"

He turned his head.

There before him stood Erik, looking nearly as dumbfounded as Charles felt.

"Oh," Charles said stupidly. "Oh, hello."

For a moment he had double vision, his memory of Erik side-by-side with Erik's true form. Thirteen years had wrought changes, though not as many as Charles had imagined. Erik's height was the same, though Charles had never reached so high next to him then, as Erik had left before Charles had gained his last two inches. His shoulders were broader, his face more finely chiseled. Erik had always been thin, but he seemed if anything to be even more so now—though perhaps that was a matter of fashion, Charles supposed; his clothes were immaculately tailored, which would speak to how well he was doing for himself even in the lack of any other evidence.

"I was just—just admiring your work," Charles said. The words sounded petty and insignificant, even, for all their truth, foolish, as they left his mouth, but he was at a loss for what else to say.

The emotion on Erik's face left quickly, leaving an unreadable expression. However unaffected he might look, Charles was sure he felt much more on the inside; there was a strong churning of emotions roiling out from Erik, much too complex and knotted for Charles to parse, overwhelmed as he was. 

"You did not have an appointment," Erik said flatly. "Your name was not in the register today."

The painting was easier to look at than Erik, until Charles imagined, fleetingly, the model Erik must have used spread in his dishabille upon the couch, exposed to that penetrating and all-comprehending gaze. Erik's pale, grey-green eyes, waiting for Charles when he turned back, were no less difficult to endure than they had been when they had been children and Erik had ruthlessly trampled over Charles's naiveté. "No," he said, when Erik seemed prepared to wait him out in silent judgment. "It was something of a whim, to stop in."

"On a miserable day." Erik's thoughts darkened, angry storm clouds against the grey monotony beyond the front door. He stepped in closer, lowering his head to Charles's, so achingly close to how they had been as boys, bending to confide or be confided in, that Charles ached fiercely, hovering on the edge of abandoning all ten years' resentment, fully ready to damn propriety and embrace his friend, and beg to be regarded as more than a boyhood companion, when Erik continued, "Why are you here, Charles? Do not lie to me."

"I heard your name mentioned," Charles said, stepping back. Erik wore no cologne, only the scent of linseed oil from his paints, and a rich, dark dustiness, organic against the formality of his suit. "I happened to be waiting for a friend, and overheard some gentlemen, not of my acquaintance, speaking of your work. And so I came to see it."

Erik's mouth thinned. It had always been expressive, to Charles, and expressive of far more than he was sure Erik thought. He read in its mercurial corners good humor or frustration, fondness or annoyance, each of them by turns. When they had been children, the servants and the governess and tutor had all thought him dour, doomed to a life of ill-temper or worse. But even aside from those rare times when Erik had gifted him with a true smile, Charles could read Erik's thoughts right there, in the peculiar temper of his mouth and the colors in his eyes. He could read it now, he found with some astonishment—another thing about Erik that had not changed—and Erik was... was angry.

"You came to see my work."

"I did." Charles did not allow himself to flinch from Erik's scrutiny; he had taught himself out of that years ago, being a young boy too stubbornly wedded to his own sense of self to subsume himself in his friend's powerful personality.

A frown manifested on Erik's mouth, in the deepening ridge between his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, and Charles braced himself for more of Erik's temper, when another black-suited man, the light of the foyer's chandelier falling on slick-oiled hair, appeared at Erik's elbow.

"Ah, M. Lehnsherr," he said, "I need to speak with you about _La Vérité_ , if it will be—oh, pardon me," the man, M. Guyot, had an artist's exacting eye; he saw and perceived the style of Charles's clothing and the quality of the fabric, and had him catalogued appropriately in an instant. "Monsieur, you are welcome, I am sure. Might I have the honor of an introduction?"

"Charles Xavier." Charles stepped forward to shake the man's hand. "You must forgive me, M. Guyot, for showing up so rudely, but I found myself struck with a sudden longing for some artistic surroundings, and I had heard your name mentioned as one to turn to in such circumstances." He smiled, putting on his most self-consciously charming and disarming expression; Guyot, already well disposed to him as a potential customer, softened toward him even more at the flattery, even as Erik grew noticeably more annoyed.

"M. Xavier is coming with me," Erik said suddenly, and both Charles and Guyot looked at him with surprise. "We will finish our business later," he said to Guyot as he set his hand on Charles's elbow, strong and tight as a steel band.

"I shall write to make an appointment for next week," Charles said, with some apology. "I feel sure we can come to some understanding then."

"Of course," Guyot murmured, frowning gently.

Erik made an impatient noise and tugged forcefully on Charles's arm as he began to walk, Charles stumbling on the first step before quickening his step to match Erik's pace. He _should_ tear himself away, ask Erik what on earth he thought he was doing, insist on some sort of explanation for Erik's behavior. But he did not. His curiosity was too strong; he wanted too badly to see what Erik intended to do. And, somewhat shamefully perhaps, he was too stunned by the knowledge of Erik's touch, even diluted as it was through the layers of clothing Charles wore.

In any event, Erik released him of his own accord once they reached the street outside. The rain had stopped, though the sky was still dark with clouds. Erik did not slow down or even look in Charles's direction; apparently he took it for granted that Charles would follow. 

And well he might, Charles thought, with a hint of bitterness. Was that not the story of their childhood, condensed? He had trailed Erik everywhere, until finally Erik left him to go too far away for Charles to follow.

"Where are we going?" Charles said, raising his voice above the bustle of the streets, the people and carriages and shops they passed. They turned a corner, and then crossed the cobblestone streets, Charles following in Erik's steps as he dodged horses and excrement with a nimble, expert step.

Charles was not sure if Erik had heard his query, as he did not respond for a long minute. Finally, Erik said, voice short, "To my home."

"I—I'm sorry?" Charles did stop then, at the hinge of two streets, just in the lee of the worst of the traffic. Two tradesmen hurrying on their way eeled around him, and a young woman, herself evidently on a mission, brushed almost too close for propriety but hurried on without apology.

Erik's momentum carried him several more steps before he realized Charles had stopped, and a moment more passed before he seemed to accept that this Charles, unlike the one who had trailed him eagerly all those years before, would not stir without explanation. Something dark and complex passed across his face, and Charles caught the trailing edges of cynical amusement and a bitter disappointment. After all these years, Erik's mind still almost seemed to shout at him; he could hear, as clearly as if Erik were whispering angrily in his ear, _Am I too far beneath you? Are you ashamed to be seen with me? Am I surprised at you being so?_

(The answer: _I am and I am not. You are not supposed to be like this. Not you._ )

"Did you have another place in mind?" Erik asked coolly. "A club, perhaps? Or," this with a sardonic curl of that mouth, "your residence?"

"Do not," Charles had his own anger, shaped of ten years of silence, and he used it now. "Do not speak to me so, Erik. Not because of what I am," and that was for the sarcastic _of course, as Sir wishes; mustn't be impertinent_ he could hear just behind Erik's lips, "but because of what we were to each other."

"What we were," Erik echoed. His mouth twisted, as if the words were sour. "Very well. In memory of what has passed, would you _deign_ to come to my apartments?"

"Gladly."

Erik blinked, shying back and shaking his head, but after a moment accepting that Charles was willing to go with him. They began to walk again, Erik's steps resuming their unforgiving swiftness, every turn taken without slackening or giving any consideration to Charles's rather shorter legs and unfamiliarity with the area. That was Erik, though, impatient of delay and limitation—the limitations of others as well as himself—and also like Erik, to be resolved on a course of action and to see it through no matter what lay at the end.

At last they came to a granite-fronted townhouse, itself and its neighbors tucked into an alcove near—Charles heard the bells, just now ringing the noon hour—Notre Dame, in a collection of apartments, ateliers and galleries, and antiquities dealers. The other buildings on the street were not elegant, with plain white stone and coppery gables, but seemed snug nonetheless behind their screens of trees and ivy. Men and women, in clothing either practical or bohemian, idled by the shop windows where they did not hurry past, carrying canvases or sculptors' tools. An artist's street, nestled between the bustle of the quays along the Seine and the old student districts, an odd in-between place that seemed to fit Erik and his independence.

For himself, Erik had taken a key from his pocket and opened the front door. "I have the house until next summer," he said, shouldering the door open and turning to let Charles in behind him. "No butler, though; you'll have to forgive me if I take your coat myself."

Charles did not dignify that with an answer. Erik hadn't expected one, had only spoken to deflect Charles's attention from studying the space around him. _Erik's_ space, a territory jealously guarded from intrusion, or from being known by outsiders.

He had done much the same the first time he had allowed Charles entrance to his room at the estate, a great favor granted only after much pleading and then badgering. _I don't have silk sheets_ , Erik had said as Charles ensconced himself on Erik's bed, curious fingers going for the stack of picture books on the nightstand.

 _Be careful with those_ , Erik said, a little sharp. Charles had given him his most scornful look, one he had carefully modeled on Erik's own. _I know how to handle books_ , he had said, raising his chin high. _I bet I can read better than you._

Erik's face had flushed, a deep awkward red all from his hairline to his neck, and a burst of embarrassment and anger hit Charles suddenly. Charles bit his lip, filled with the knowledge that he had said something terribly wrong, though he wasn't sure what it was.

 _Not everybody's lucky enough to have our own tutor_ , Erik said. He was still standing at the door, his arms crossed against his chest, and he was staring out toward the tiny window on the other side of the small room, refusing to look at Charles.

Charles carefully set the books down in the same place he had taken them from, and picked up the stuffed bear that lay across the pillow. It was old, the fur worn off in many places, one of the eyes replaced with a button. It had been Mrs. Lehnsherr's in Germany when she was a girl, Charles knew. It was the only toy in the room—of course Erik was too old, too mature for childish things, as he reminded Charles so often. Charles clutched the bear close to his chest, holding it like something fragile.

 _Well, you should_ , he had said, breaking the tense silence. _You're the smartest person I know. It's not right._

 _It's how it is_ , Erik said.

Charles frowned. _We'll do something about it, then. You could hide in the closet during my lessons. Or, or—or I could come find you after my lessons, and I will teach you everything I learned that day._

At that, Erik had looked back to him. A battle played across his face, pride and longing warring with each other. _You would do that for me?_

_Of course_ , Charles had said. _Anything._

It was clear that Erik had let the house already furnished; there was nothing in it that seemed to call to Charles as his taste or style, at least not in these front rooms. Somehow he had imagined that any place Erik inhabited would be immediately recognizable, struck through entirely with that spark of personality. 

Any personality in the place, at least the downstairs, came from Erik himself. It filled the air around him, as compelling to Charles now, at twenty-seven, as it had been when they had been children and Erik, like a magnet, drew him everywhere. And now Charles followed him through the front drawing room, all the furniture in it untouched, the air dead save for Erik's presence. Charles had the sense that the rest of the house was empty, not even a servant.

"The maid is out," Erik said, as if he could read minds. He offered Charles a sidelong, baiting look that Charles declined accepting. Erik grunted impatiently and stalked through a door linking the front room to a smaller parlor.

This, at least, looked inhabited, with a fire drowsing in the hearth and books and newspapers stacked on the tables. Charles touched the corner of one, _L'Aurore_ , its pages cracked and stained. He moved the volume of Balzac that served as its paperweight and saw the headline, _J'accuse...!_ and the name beneath it.

"Dreyfus was pardoned, was he not?"

"He was never guilty." Erik moved the novel back to cover Zola's name, and the stiffness in his posture, on the edge of flight or attack, told Charles to move away, and reminded him what had once been childish curiosity was now a freedom he was not allowed. He withdrew into himself, the habit of taking up little space that he had learned from time he had been forced to spend in the company of his stepfather. Unaccountably, this seemed to anger Erik as well, though the sense of the anger was directionless, hovering, confused, darting in at Erik himself rather than at Charles.

"Please," Erik said, gesturing to the chair closest to the fire, "Sit." He proceeded to stoke the fire himself, ignoring Charles's protests that it wasn't necessary, and repeated his order for Charles to _sit, already_ , reinforced with a glare and a jab of the poker.

By Erik's side, the ash shovel and broom trembled in their holder, and the frame of the holder itself trembled, shedding pale ash on the hearthstones. Charles's heart leaped to see that, to know that Erik's ability was still part of him, to see that what he remembered from their childhood was not the memory of a vivid dream, a dream of a happy life.

"You still," Erik tapped his forehead, his expression dry.

"Yes," Charles said before Erik could say anything else. He wished, not for the first time, he could communicate with Erik that way, if perhaps communicating mind-to-mind might bypass the thorns and tripwires of their long estrangement.

"In all this time, I have yet to find another person with differences like ours," Erik said. It was said in a more companionable tone than anything else he had said so far. "Perhaps I have never been close enough to gain such confidence from another. It seems unlikely, does it not, that it could only be you and I in the entire world?"

"It does," Charles agreed. "What are the chances that we would have met at all, let alone at such a tender age? The luck of it would strain credulity."

"Luck," Erik repeated, gazing at him. "An interesting choice of words."

Erik sat himself down in the chair opposite Charles's, falling into the seat with a kind of animal grace that drew the eye. That was one difference from the boy Charles had known: the awkwardness of Erik's teenage years was gone as completely as if it had never existed. In those days, Erik had held himself back, too aware of his position to ever let himself be comfortable, and yet too proud to accept it, either. Not so this Erik, at ease in this space he had made his own, as confident in himself as he was in the streets, or with M. Guyot.

"It is good to see you doing so well," Charles said. "I have wondered, over the years, what had become of you."

"Have you?" Erik said. He was still watching Charles closely; his eyes hadn't left Charles's face for a moment.

"Often," Charles said softly, and it was he that broke eye contact then, looking down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. 

You are a grown man, he scolded himself. You are no longer that hero-worshiping adolescent, you would do well to remember that. 

"You know I went to Boston after I left your estate," Erik said. "After that I went to London, where I started my apprenticeship under Samuel Halpern." The name was vaguely familiar to Charles; he and Raven had been in London for several months before they had left for Paris last week, and he was fairly certain Raven had mentioned his work more than once. It had all blurred together, after a while. "I settled in Paris almost five years ago, now." Erik rattled the facts off quickly, passing over the years in a matter of words, as easily as if they had happened to an entirely different person. Charles could only imagine how much hard work, how many difficulties, Erik had experienced. To go from that young man, no money and no connections, to the status and success he had now... What an achievement. 

"And what of you?" Erik asked, before Charles could offer an observation or congratulations, neither of which would have been well-received.

Next to Erik's list, Charles's own life telescoped into woeful mediocrity. _No_ , he told himself. _You've done much, and you have earned your degrees on your merits._

"I started at Oxford a few years after you left for Boston." It was easier to say that than to say _after you left_. "I left before I took my doctorate in physiology and comparative anatomy," that had been Raven, her needs superseding his, and Kurt's death forcing him to action in the business, "but I hope to go back."

Rather more than that had happened, but he doubted Erik cared to hear.

"Your mother died."

"Yes." Erik did not offer his condolences, but sank into an unbreakable silence. Charles found himself grateful for it; his own grief at his mother's death had been lacking, felt (if at all) through layers of happiness that he could, finally, strike out on his own. Erik had always been plain about his dislike of Charles's mother, and for him to extend sympathies for a death that could touch him only with relief was utterly beyond Erik's nature. Charles recalled clearly his mother's censure of Erik's presence, the tall, unnaturally silent, watchful boy whose silent gaze served to remind her of the unpleasant truths of her existence, propped up by the dependency of others. She had borne with his residence in the house because his mother had proven herself invaluable, and because Erik had been inexpensive, and because it had been _charitable_.

But the acknowledgment deserved an answer beyond what Charles had given, and the only answer to give was graceless, heartfelt. "I was very sorry to hear your mother had died," he said softly, forcing himself to look directly at Erik so that Erik might see the truth of his grief. "I wish I could have been at home, to be with her."

 _Boys! Boys, come now, in out of the rain, or you will catch worse than your death from me_. Despite the stern words, Mrs. Lehnsherr's mind was soft and warm, welcoming as the towels she flung around them to rub away the cold rainwater. She had not forbidden their excursion to the apple orchard, despite the grey fall day and her mistress's orders concerning Charles's health and the preservation of the same from cold weather. The governess, either an ally to Mrs. Lehnsherr or simply not caring about her absentee employer's dictates, had permitted the trip.

With the fall wind rumbling behind them, Charles and Erik had stumbled laughing into the warm kitchen, heeding Mrs. Lehnsherr's orders to sit by the fire and take off their wet things.

That day had been much like this, blustery and promising misery. Charles felt the knowledge of the cooling air outside, the year turning slowly towards fall; it made the fire, roaring away in its grate, all the warmer, and it seemed to create a tenuous bubble in which he and Erik might exist together.

Erik's mouth tightened. "She kept her illness to herself, at the end. I would have come home to be with her, if I had known." Charles bit his lip at the choices of words. _Home_ , Erik had said, a slip of the tongue he did not seem to notice as he went on. "I came back for the funeral, but I was too late to stop your mother from burying her in the churchyard," Erik finished. "Did she tell you how I yelled at her? Your stepfather threatened to call the police force on me if I didn't leave on my own, and again if I ever came back."

"No," Charles said. He could imagine it easily, Erik so young and bitter and friendless, without Charles and Mrs. Lehnsherr to shield him from the worst. Charles should have been with him, for his mother's funeral if nothing else, but Mother had not even bothered to inform him until months afterward. _I don't make a habit of informing you of every change in our staff, Charles_ , she had told him frostily when he confronted her. "Mother never told me. But then, she told me very little, on the whole. Even less worth hearing."

Erik nodded in acknowledgment, sharing his sardonic amusement at the statement. He tapped his fingers absently upon the arm of his chair. Charles had the sense he was struggling with a decision. Odd, to see Erik even the least bit uncertain—but then, he had to remind himself again, he didn't truly know Erik, not this Erik. It was so tempting to fall into the trap of assuming otherwise. Even with this distance and awkwardness between them, it still felt right to be so near to him, as if Charles was breathing fully in the first time in so many years. No matter that this Erik was so sharp and brittle, like a shard of broken glass. 

"In truth, I did not ask you here to trade reminiscences," Erik said, evidently having made up his mind on whatever dilemma plagued him. 

Charles raised an eyebrow. "No?" he said. "I admit, find it hard to imagine what other use you might have for me."

"Do you?" Erik murmured. He pushed himself up and off his chair, crossing the distance between them with a single step. He folded himself over Charles, his hands on either side of the upholstery, neatly boxing Charles in. Charles stared up at him, startled and uncertain—had Erik brought him all this way simply to hit him? Surely he couldn't hate Charles so much, not after all this time, not without any reason Charles could see.

"You've changed." Erik's gaze cut beneath his skin, peeling Charles's layers back, dissecting him. This must be what Erik had done, painting that woman and boy, digging up what lay beneath them and bringing it to the surface. Charles forced himself not to look away, or press back into his chair, and met Erik's eyes as squarely as he could. Erik leaned in, and his breath brushed softly against Charles's face, stirring eddies under his skin. Charles swallowed, his entire being suddenly constricted, as if his soul had suddenly grown too big for his skin to contain, or wanted to hurl itself beyond the confines of his body and reach across the ever-vanishing space between them.

"You've changed," Erik said again, "But not that much."

"What do you mean?" Charles whispered, hating how his voice broke, cracking on the tension. Warmth had spread up from his belly, coloring his face, eddying dizzyingly in his head.

Erik hummed. "You have grown, but you're still you, aren't you? Still generous, kind, _trusting_. Above all the rest of us." One hand half-lifted, checked in the very same motion that would have carried it to rest against Charles's face or the thundering point of his pulse.

Every breath he took had Erik's scent thick in it. "I've never been those things. Not _above_ you."

"You truly do not know," Erik said, as if marveling at something. Erik did touch him now, stroking his cheek. From any other person save Erik or Raven, it would have been an impermissible liberty, but this—the last time they had touched had been before Erik's departure for Boston, when Erik had permitted no more than a handshake, holding himself carefully aloof. Charles, fourteen and faced with the endless, lonely prospect of Erik's leaving, had been heartbroken, and quietly, viciously jealous as he watched Erik embrace his mother. But this, now; Charles recalled gentle, affectionate touches, so at odds with Erik's sharp edges, Erik touching him as if not quite believing this was permitted.

The majority of time it had been Charles doing the touching, Charles making his way into Erik's space, setting himself in there as if there was no doubt he was wanted, no doubt he would be accepted and welcomed. He had not even realized how presumptuous he was until he no longer had the opportunity. 

But now it was Erik who was crossing that boundary, so confident and sure, so close that there was nothing but him filling all of Charles's senses. 

"What don't I know?" Charles said. It was hard to form the words into anything sensible when he was so distracted, when every cell in his body felt like it was waiting for _something_ to happen, anticipatory for something Charles could not even name.

Erik let out a breath that Charles wanted almost to classify as a sigh. His eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks as he blinked, long and black and silky, and Charles couldn't help but stare at them, wonder how soft they might be to his touch, when everything else of Erik was so hard.

Erik said, "I have waited fifteen years to do this," and then he was crossing the chasm that was those few inches between them, pressing his lips firmly against Charles's.

 _Oh_ , Charles thought wildly. He had never thought—he had never _allowed_ himself to think—

Erik's hand still cupped Charles's cheek, holding him still as Erik kissed him, warm and careful. His tongue played gently against the crease of Charles's mouth until Charles let him in, and then the kiss changed into something deeper, and more desperate.

Charles surged up into the kiss, arching his back against the chair and bringing his hands up to Erik's shoulders to steady himself. His entire body felt hot and aching, and he could feel the rising of the goosebumps on his skin, the tightening of his belly, the awakening of his groin. He was a normal young man, as far as these things went, and he had felt desire many times—had performed the act of love before, too, in Oxford, with friendly barmaids or a prostitute (the latter only once, as he had found quickly that it was difficult to find pleasure when he could sense how unpleasant or boring it was for her)—but this felt different. It was more; it was stronger.

Erik was stronger, taking charge of Charles's mouth, licking in deeply and stealing Charles's breath from his lungs. As Charles leaned up, Erik pressed in, until Charles gave away and melted back with a sigh that won a broken, almost grieving, sound from Erik's throat. The weight of his shoulders and chest kept Charles pinned, leaning up awkwardly to match Erik mouth to mouth, and Charles in that moment would rather have died than try to pull away—as if there were anywhere to go—or ask Erik to stop.

Stop Erik did, for a long and breathless moment, staring down at Charles with the most shocked, vulnerable expression Charles had ever seen. He still supported himself, hands on either side of Charles's head, but now uncertainty was there, and if Erik still had his fingers dug into the damask fabric of the chair it was as much to anchor himself as to keep himself from collapsing atop of Charles. Charles stared up at him, feeling scarcely less overwhelmed, and saw the churning of surprise and hunger and then inevitably, suspicion, about Erik's head, the aura one of thunder rumbling ahead of a storm. He held himself quite motionless, unwilling to give Erik any pretense to withdraw, and after a long moment that stretched itself out painfully, Erik pushed himself upright and stepped back.

"Did you learn more than your Greek at college?" he asked, a razor's-edge smile to finish off the question. "Did you change _that_ much?"

"You said fifteen years," Charles replied. Erik had his stubbornness; Charles had his own determination. "You _waited_. You waited that long."

That won him a sardonic inclination of Erik's head. "Are you shocked?" Without waiting for an answer, Erik stepped away, pacing across the room to the fireplace. Charles struggled for calm and remained sitting, and felt the distance between them acutely. This, at least, had changed either, how mercurial Erik was, calm and willing to be close one minute, a stalking, caged cat the next, ready to claw anyone who attempted to soothe or tame. He watched the tense line of Erik's back, silhouetted by the fire, a strange, nearly uncivilized shape under his jacket, and Erik himself out of place among the stylish furniture and gilding. The poker and shovel had begun to tremble again.

"I am shocked," Charles said, "because I never knew. You never _told_ me."

"Really." Erik's shoulders shook. "I was the fifteen-year-old son of the _cook_ and you were barely twelve, and the only son of the woman who controlled my family's future. Are you really that surprised? Are you _that_ innocent, Charles, that you know nothing of how relations between men are spoken of, much less relations between different classes?"

"What was the rest of the world to _us_?" Charles shot back, anger rising in him now to mirror Erik's own. "I loved you! You were _everything_!"

Erik shook his head disbelievingly, and the harsh sound emitting from his mouth was not something Charles was willing to classify as a laugh. 

"I know you think me naive," Charles continued. He barely recognized his own voice, as quiet and deadly as it now was. "Perhaps I am, but at least I'm not a coward."

The sally struck home, as precisely as Charles could have wished. Erik's jaw fell open in shock. "How dare you call me a coward?" he hissed. "You have no idea what I've lived through—"

"Because you _left_ ," Charles answered. "I don't know because you left. Because you were too scared to stay."

"It's not that simple," Erik said. His brow was drawn, his hands fisted against his side. He looked dangerous; like a madman in a story. "You have grown up with everything you ever wanted handed to you—you haven't the slightest clue what it's like to have to work for everything and to know it might be taken away in the barest instant. To be hated and scorned and wretched. You have no right to judge me, you spoiled, selfish prig."

Charles sucked in a deep breath, and rose from the chair. "You have no idea what I've lived through, either," Charles said, forcing himself to let the words out slow and calm. "But very well; prove me wrong, then." He raised his arms, palms up and open between them. "Fifteen years of waiting, you said. I doubt it was really for just a single kiss. Take what you want, if you're not too afraid."

 _I dare you to jump off the roof of the shed_ , Charles had said gleefully. It was on the far side of the estate, not visible from the main house, and it was the gardeners' and groundskeeper's day off; they had the entire thing to themselves, and the temptation was heavy,

Erik had rolled his eyes. _Why would I do that? It's stupid._

_Is not_ , Charles retorted. _It will be fun. Look, I'll go first._ He started to run off, but he was stopped by Erik's hand of his arm, holding him back. 

_You could hurt yourself_.

 _I won't_ , Charles promised. _Trust me_.

They had jumped off together, holding hands, and no more dire consequences had resulted than skinned knees, grass stains, and a mild scolding when Mrs. Lehnsherr saw them next, and saw the state of their clothing.

What they might face if the world discovered this did not bear thinking of. Nothing bore thinking of, not with heat flashing through Erik's eyes and lighting him up like electricity, transfiguring him. In one, two, three, strides he crossed the room, his determination and desire rushing before him in a wave that swept Charles up and engulfed him and pulled him under. The third step brought Erik into Charles's arms—or Charles into his—and Erik's mouth down upon Charles's own, opening him up again without any of the politeness of that first time. It was more heat, impatience and lust, and refusal to allow Charles to take back what he had already offered.

Invisible fingers (and they were invisible; Erik had both hands in Charles's hair, tugging and tangling in the strands) pulled at the bits of metal about Charles's body, his watch and buttons, the ring on his right hand. Erik's ability seemed to hesitate over that for a moment, but a moment only, for he still kissed Charles deeply, wildly, incoherent words murmured when they had to part for breath. In those moments, Charles breathed him in, a faint cologne he had not noticed earlier but mostly the rich scent of paints and the organic salt of Erik's skin.

"Come," Erik whispered roughly, nipping Charles's ear.

He radiated challenge, and a half-formed expectation that Charles would take this opportunity to denounce him and leave; Charles, already on fire and impatient enough not to suffer Erik's suspicion, asked, "Is your bedroom upstairs?" It won him a tug on his hand, Erik's fingers weaving through his to tug, to pull Charles in and keep him close. Erik led him swiftly through the door and into the narrower back part of the hall, up stairs unlit and blurry in the shadows, but with portraits gazing inscrutably down at them. Erik took the stairs in twos or threes with those long legs of his, and at the top, turning the corner alongside the mahogany bannister. The turn spun Charles around and back into Erik's arms again, and before Erik could kiss him, Charles leaned up, drawing Erik down to him. The balustrade took their weight, Erik settling back to permit Charles between his thighs, and it was then, pressing in to take more, as much as he could get, of Erik's mouth, that Charles felt the hard bulge of Erik's cock, pushing at the constraints of fine, civilized wool.

"I won't be satisfied with these kisses, either." Erik bit at Charles's lips, and rocked against him, a pointed angling of hips to rub his cock against Charles's thigh. "Do you still want this?" _Do you still_ , Erik meant, _want me._

Charles was hard-pressed to think of anything he had ever wanted more. "Yes," Charles said, "My god, yes." He ran his hand down Erik's jacket to his waist. Charles's hands were not particularly large, but Erik's waist was small enough to envy anything Raven ever managed with her nemesis of a corset, and so when Charles spread his palm across the curve of Erik's flank, it felt as if he was covering a great deal. He pushed down firmly with the pads of his fingers, against the soft fabric down to the hard, lean flesh beneath, pressing into the sharp angular bone of his hip. Charles imagined how Erik's skin would look — the sight of his long, rangy body — and he sucked in a shallow breath in anticipation. 

He took a step backwards, dragging Erik along with him, unwilling to let the connection of touch break for a moment. A moment would be all it would take, Charles suspected, for Erik to change his mind, and Charles was determined not to give him any such chance.

"Take me to your bed," Charles said, lacing their fingers together once again.

Erik's eyes searched his face for a moment, and Charles tilted his head up, allowing the examination to continue until Erik seemed well satisfied. Finally, Erik leaned in, stealing another kiss — just a quick peck this time, a promise of more to come — before he began to pull Charles down the darkened hall.

He let go of Charles's hand when they reached the second door, taking another key out of his pocket to unlock it before placing his hand between Charles's shoulder blades and pushing him inside. The room was even darker than the rest of the house, no lights and drawn curtains, and Charles could make out nothing but vague shapes. He could hear Erik moving around behind him, though, and after a moment a lamp came on, filling the room with a soft glow.

The room was messy. The bed was unmade, clothes lay discarded on the floor, and everywhere—everywhere—there was paper. Half-finished sketches and practice studies, or pages full of words that Charles could not make out at this distance and light, or discarded crumpled piles of whatever had failed to meet Erik's exacting standards.

Charles turned toward Erik, who still stood next to the lamp, watching him with a shielded, wary expression. A shiver of irritation went down Charles's spine — Erik _still_ did not believe him, still seemed convinced that Charles was looking for some excuse to judge him or reject him. Part of Erik would probably be relieved by it, Charles suspected, satisfied to have his assumptions of Charles proved correct.

Charles caught Erik's gaze and kept it as he removed his jacket. He folded it over his arm and lay it down on the nearest dresser. Straightening his shoulders, he met Erik's eyes again as he began to unbutton his clothing.

The hunger on Erik's face was gratifying; it made up for any self-consciousness Charles might feel. Fifteen years, Erik had said. How blind must Charles have been back then?

He had always, until the moment of Erik's rejection, _known_ they would spend the rest of their lives together, although it had not been until Oxford he had suspected all the dimensions of that coexistence. And even then, he had only imagined it, unwilling to accept the possibility of it ever being real, seeing in his wounded pride Erik's affection as the affection given to a younger brother, or to the only friend a solitary boy like Erik might have for himself. In those few moments when he had permitted himself to see Erik in his mind's eye instead of the girls at Lady Margaret, he had fumblingly constructed what an older Erik might look like when disrobed, and how he might touch Charles, and how he might feel under Charles's hands.

Now—the present surpassed all fantasy, Erik's hungry gaze as heavy as a touch, as hands pulling him apart and dismantling him. Erik, stepping forward, put his hands on Charles's naked sides, sliding up underneath his shirt, one long trail of heat spreading out where his hands had been. When Erik kissed him again, folding around him, Charles caught the edge of pleasure at how his body felt against Erik's, firm skin and muscle and perfect to gather close and keep him there, where he might be Erik's and Erik's alone. Held like this, trapped in Erik's arms, shirtless now—Erik had slid it off his shoulders, pristine whiteness perilously close to being trod underfoot—sent his heart galloping, desire riding his blood and making him dizzy with the speed of it.

"My bed, you said," Erik muttered. The embrace turned to a command, pulling Charles forward as Erik stepped back, four clumsy steps through each other's need and the papers and books on the floor, until Erik turned and lowered them so Charles was spread out against the disheveled sheets. Awkward, unused to being looked at like this, with such honest, unmasked desire, Charles shuffled backward, and Erik followed him, crawling atop him and bracketing him with arms and legs until Charles was spread across the mattress and Erik was spread atop him.

"Perfection" was all Erik said before bending to kiss Charles. Charles leaned up, eager for more of Erik's mouth on his, but with that old, wicked smile, Erik kissed his neck instead, and then his collar bone, and then his chest, one nipple and then another. It was either cling desperately to the sheets or to Erik's hair, and Charles chose the latter, holding himself steady against Erik's body and keeping his mouth precisely where Erik might tease and lick and call up the most delicious shudders out of Charles's body.

He dug his nails lightly across Erik's scalp, causing Erik to jerk slightly beneath his hands, losing his steady rhythm of suckling against Charles's skin. Erik raised his head, then, pushing back against the force of Charles's hands trying to keep him where he was, until he could look at Charles's face once more. All the places where Erik had kissed him, all the places Erik was no longer touching him, seemed suddenly too cold, contrasted with the enticing heat Erik gave out everywhere, and Charles shivered a little, biting his lip.

"I could do anything I want to you," Erik whispered, stroking the flat of his hand down Charles's chest and belly. "You would let me wreck you." His fingers stopped at the fly of Charles's pants, a warm pressure against the hardness beneath. 

"Erik—" Charles said, noting, as if it was very far away from himself, how broken his voice sound. "I want you—"

Erik inhaled sharply, almost a hiss, and Charles could feel it, the spike in his arousal and how it bled into the air all around them, heady and intoxicating and irresistible. And then they were kissing once more—already Charles was growing familiar with Erik's mouth, its luscious variety, and he thought he could become a scholar on this as well, devote his life to studying the minute variations—

Erik's hands were moving even as they kissed, tugging and attacking Charles's trousers with a savage impatience. Charles shifted his hips beneath him in encouragement, and together they succeeded in the task of divesting Charles was the remainder of his clothing, leaving him bare and exposed utterly. It was then that Erik broke the kiss, rising up to sit back on his haunches, knees on either side of Charles's thighs, and gazed down.

Charles stared up at him. "Touch me," he said, unsure if it was a plea or a command. Erik looked no more certain, but he obliged, either way, sighing as his hand wrapped itself around Charles's straining erection.

"Look at that," Erik said;. His voice sounded almost casual, as if they were engaging in polite small talk, perhaps something on the weather. If Charles had not known him so well, he would never have been able to see the strain necessary for Erik to sound so uncaring. "Look, Charles, how perfectly your cock fits in my hand."

Awkwardly, Charles lifted his head, struggling to obey and focus down the length of his body. He did, finally, and Erik laughed at his soft cry, more bitten-off sob than anything, when Charles saw that yes, yes it _was_ perfect, Erik's big hand with its graceful fingers wrapped around him, his cock set perfectly in the fleshy groove of Erik's palm. Erik's hand was damp, with sweat and the fluid his touch encouraged from the head of Charles's cock, spreading both up and down his shaft. The sight of it, Erik stroking him, holding him tight, coupled to Erik's skin wet and firm against him, pulled another moan from him, the sound stretched tight and painful with pleasure.

"Please," he gasped, arching his hips up to chase more of that delicious pressure.

The plea won him a laugh and another firm stroke, and Erik leaning on his elbow over him, his free hand running along Charles's arm. "Have you done this often?" Erik asked, the edges of his voice tattered and beyond Erik's control to smooth them out. "Have you touched yourself like this? Did you imagine me doing it?"

 _Yes_ , Charles thought. Although he had imagined it, he never dared wish for it, and now he had it it transcended even the most vivid, lush fantasies he had allowed himself. And all the times he had touched himself, it had never once been as clear and visceral as this, had never broken him and reduced him to indignity like this. Shivering, he thrust again and felt acutely the tight, callused glide of Erik's fingers, and when Erik stroked him in turn, the sharp, threatening edge of a nail across his cockhead.

He yelped, and half-expected Erik to laugh again, but when he got his eyes open—they had fallen shut, concentrating all that pleasure inside his body—he saw Erik staring down at him, wide pale eyes incredulous and still so _hungry_ , the face of a starving man given anything he might desire, who could only look because he could not bring himself to believe the reality of the end of privation. Shakily, Charles touched Erik's sharp-curved cheek and guided him down to have that wonderful, broad chest and shoulders atop him, keeping him in place and holding him together, and Erik's mouth to take the last of the breath from his lungs.

There was nothing in his world except for Erik, his body, his flesh, his touch. The feel of Erik's hand was a study in contrasts, soft skin alternating with the rough calluses from years of pen and brush, sensation upon sensation for Charles to drown in. Erik's strokes were knowing, practiced, and Charles wondered how often he had done this before, how many other people had been in his bed. The swell of jealousy that rose up in his chest took him by surprise, for he had never thought of himself as a jealous man. But Erik was _his_ —Erik had always been his—and the thought of him with another was unbearable. It should have been Charles, all these years. They had wasted so much time.

Erik was still dressed, and every time they moved together the fine fabric rubbed against Charles's bare skin. Any other time it might have been an irritant, but now he could barely bring himself to notice. Erik's cock was still hidden away, though, and Charles longed to see it, to touch Erik as he was now touching Charles.

Their foreheads were resting against each other as they panted into each other's mouths. "Let me do something for you," Erik said softly, nuzzling against Charles's chin and jaw. "Will you?"

"Anything," Charles said.

Still, he couldn't help but let out a soft noise of protest as Erik shifted away; Erik merely shushed him gently, though, and kept going, crawling down the bed until his head was even with Charles's groin. His cock was still in Erik's lovely grip, and Erik stared down at it a moment with the utmost concentration, causing it to twitch and jump under his careful regard. Erik looked back up at Charles and smiled, wide and utterly self-satisfied—Charles spared the slightest moment to remember that same rare grin in their childhood, Erik so self-conscious then about his animal-like teeth—and said, "I would wager no one has ever done this for you before. You'll have to tell me if I'm right."

He lowered his head then, swiping his tongue wet across the head of Charles's cock.

The prostitute he had been with had tried this, had knelt and undone his trousers before her boredom had quenched any ardor Charles might have felt. He had read the sly references to it in Greek and Latin, and heard the conversations of his fellows, but had never experienced it. How Erik might have known his inexperience, prior to the undignified noise Charles made when Erik's tongue touched his hot and aching skin was, like the rest of him, a mystery, and Erik's mouth sliding further down Charles's cock dispelled any possibility of solving it.

He heard nothing from Erik other than low, harsh breaths and a sigh that seemed to throb in Erik's chest, and then the soft, wet sounds of his tongue lapping and sliding; _sucking_ , Erik's mouth drawing the pleasure out of him, tightening the knot of it low in Charles's stomach. He had his hands anchored in Erik's hair again, trying, trying so very hard not to shove or demand, and when Erik grunted knew he was not successful.

"Erik—" he began, intending to apologize.

"Don't." The word rasped, deliciously rough and lowering Erik's voice to darkness, to a texture that raised shivers across Charles's body. Erik gazed up Charles's body, grey eyes fixing his uncompromisingly. "I love this, Charles, knowing only I can do this to you." He nuzzled Charles's cock, which jolted a laugh from Charles and even won a slight, blissful smile from Erik, before Erik renewed his attentions. His eyes flickered shut again, and it seemed beautiful, beautiful and wrong, that Charles should see him this way, vulnerable and so given up to Charles's pleasure; _shameless_ , perhaps, which pulled another moan out of him and had him burying his fingers in Erik's hair again, knowing what they did here would earn them opprobrium in the world beyond Erik's walls, and knowing Erik did not care in the least.

Distantly, he heard the great, swelling buzz of Erik's thoughts, a clamor of disbelief and satisfaction, of an aching need that Erik was content to leave unsatisfied if only for the delight of knowing he was taking Charles to pieces.

It seemed impossible that Erik could possibly want this as much as Charles, but there was no denying the evidence that he _did_. Their pleasure and desire seemed to Charles to be twining together in his mind, building up and pushing to some unimaginable high, almost unbearably sweet. He could feel his climax approaching rapidly. He curled his toes tightly and forced himself to yank on Erik's hair, not gentle at all, to signal him to stop. Erik pulled his mouth off, producing an astonishingly obscene wet noise and leaving Charles's cock slick with his saliva, glistening visibly. 

Erik wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, licking his lips after. "Charles?" he asked hoarsely.

"I didn't want to spill in your mouth," Charles said, with what little breath he could draw together.

Erik merely frowned—disapproval, scolding, the same expression Charles had seen from his face a hundred, a thousand times, but suddenly new and strange and unexpected in this context—and said, "I thought this was about what _I_ wanted. You said I could do as I like."

Charles shook a little. Fine, then, if Erik did not wish him to control himself, then Charles would let go. Charles closed his eyes, turning his head against the pillow, and lost himself in it, as Erik held his thighs with a hard, demanding grip. Erik's tongue licked across his testes, and he did not stop, even when Charles cried out; when Charles arched up violently from the bed, Erik merely pushed him back down and returned to his cock, swallowing it down deep into his throat.

It was only a matter of time, then, and it was not very long at all before Charles reached his peak, ejaculating into Erik's mouth for what seemed like an endless moment, feeling Erik taking in his seed, hearing that joy and satisfied pride that echoed from Erik's mind. Erik held him in his mouth even as he began to soften, and once again Charles had to pull him off. 

"Come _here_ ," Charles said, tugging him back up the bed. "Come and kiss me."

Erik laughed, low and dark, and climbed back up, lowering himself once more to blanket Charles's body. Charles tilted his head for the kiss, licking his way into Erik's mouth to chase the strange bitter taste of himself. He ran his hands up and down Erik's broad back, encouraging the way Erik thrust helplessly against his thigh. 

Charles turned his head, taking Erik's earlobe into his mouth and tugging it between his teeth. It caused Erik to groan, a rumble that went through his chest, where Charles could feel it against his own. "Tell me what to do," he murmured into Erik's ear. "I want to make you feel as good as I do. What else did you think of all this time?"

"Too many things," Erik whispered, turning his face to the sweaty curve of Charles's neck. His eyelashes brushed Charles's skin, the only delicate thing in this moment. "Everything. Touch me."

With inarticulate fingers, Charles tugged Erik's shirt from his trousers and then, with the aid of Erik's abilities, opened the buttons, pushing the waist over the narrow slope of Erik's hip. Hesitantly, he reached between Erik's legs, brushing sweat-damp skin that trembled under him, and then a thatch of rough hair, and then, teasingly—Charles was not so overcome he couldn't play or torment—Erik's cock.

"God," Erik choked out, thrusting up and into Charles's hand, his cock riding the hard pad of Charles's thigh. He got an arm around Charles and tugged him in close, the weight of him enough to trap Charles and hold him down. Charles took Erik as best he could and worked his hand around Erik's cock, a whispered, _You are this way because of me_ when he felt how big Erik was, his erection thick and heavy in Charles's palm. Erik shuddered and thrust again, a mindless rocking and chasing after sensation. One thigh slid across Charles's, grappling him even closer, one of Erik's hands held Charles's down, the one not trapped between them, stroking Erik full-length now, from the base of his cock to the wet tip. Erik had begun kissing him, bites and breaths and licks that trailed down Charles's neck and up again, up to his jaw, and, when Charles turned his head, his mouth again.

The light and air around Erik had changed, charged with his desire and the need that had burned almost all of him away. He shoved urgently against Charles's hand and thigh, his pace uneven and whatever coordination he had fragmenting as he came to pieces. Charles encouraged him with soft words, hoping that Erik might see and know all the things Charles had had to leave unspoken, and told him how lovely he looked, how good he felt, how perfect his cock was in Charles's hand—under them endearments he thought distantly might be innocent or too sweet, nothing like the lovely filthiness that seemed to touch the words Erik had spoken to him earlier. Still, the words wrung more shivers and incoherence out of Erik, and Charles's name whispered over and over again in a pitch increasingly desperate.

"Can you—" Charles began, and did not finish; Erik reached his climax with a cry, spilling wet and hot between them, all over Charles's fingers and wrist and the bedclothes. In that moment Erik's was painful and vulnerable, his mind an echoing whiteness of ecstasy, and all Charles could do was hold him and whisper all he could let himself whisper into Erik's ear, and pet and stroke those swathes of trembling muscle.

There was no sound in the room but the heavy rasps of Erik's inhalations as he fought to catch his breath. After a minute, he raised himself up on his elbow and rolled gently to Charles's side. Immediately Charles missed the heaviness of his body, pressing him down into the mattress. He turned onto his side as well, so he and Erik lay facing one another. Their hands were still clasped together, like a wire conducting electricity between their bodies. Charles did not want to ever let go. Erik's grip was almost painfully tight. 

Erik's eyes were closed; in repose the hint of tenderness in his face was less hidden. His thoughts were quiet, for once, though Charles doubted that would last for any amount of time.

Charles's gaze drifted down the length of Erik's body, feasting on each scrap of skin that lay available, and finally resting on his cock, which he had still not seen in all they had just done. Even now, as it began to relax into its flaccid state, it was impressively—thrillingly—large. Circumcised, of course. There had been a time when Erik's body was familiar and unremarkable to him, as they had seen each other naked often enough as children, bathing or swimming in the pond on the property. The first time had been not long after they had met; Charles had been so young then that he was ignorant enough of religion and custom that Erik had had to explain to him why they looked different, and what it meant that he was a Jew.

Looking at Erik's cock now, Charles felt a stirring in his belly rising anew—although it would be some time, he knew, before anything else would be able to rise.

Although... perhaps not that long, he amended, as Erik twisted a little, rearranging himself more comfortably, and causing his clothes to shift as well, exposing more of his sharp hipbones and well-muscled buttocks.

Erik let out a soft sound, almost like a sigh. His breaths were quiet and even, his mind still tranquil, and Charles realized with some surprise that Erik had fallen into a light sleep. 

Another surprise quickly followed: a spirited rumbling from Charles's stomach. Although the lamp still burned, with the curtains drawn and his pocket watched abandoned on the floor with the rest of his clothing, Charles had no method of ascertaining how much time had passed. It could well be midday already. It was unlikely that Erik had food worth eating in the house, but Charles seemed to remember they had passed by a small cafe on the last corner they had turned. Charles could go and fetch them both some pastries or baguettes, and come back to join Erik in a feast of a picnic in bed, daring and unconventional. The only other item they would require would be a bottle of wine, and that Charles felt sure Erik could provide.

He watched Erik's sleeping face for a moment, reluctant to wake him, but acutely aware what Erik might do if he woke to find Charles gone. If Charles left without a word, even for the half-hour it would take to dress and fetch a meal, Erik's pride—his damnable, beautiful pride—would not permit Charles back, and perhaps Erik would decide that he had taken all he could, that to take more would be dangerous. That, Charles reflected, would strike at the heart of what Erik was: too proud to admit need, too determined to accept his vulnerabilities.

That he might be such, a chink in Erik's armor, struck Charles to the core. He shivered with the knowledge, wishing Erik might not see love for him as a weakness that might, one day, drag him down.

 _Do you swear to be a faithful comrade, companion, and brother to me_ Charles had asked. Focusing on the words and the significance of the moment meant not thinking of the sharp edge of Erik's pocket knife settling against his skin. He trusted Erik, of course, with everything a seven-year-old boy could think to trust to another, but the silvery sharpness of that blade and the split-second foolishness of jumping off a shed offered different kinds of pain, the former worse for being _thought_ about, for knowing it was coming.

 _Of course_ , Erik had said gruffly.

"Erik?" Charles asked softly. He rubbed a finger across the ridge of Erik's knuckles, just as softly. "Erik?"

"Hm?" Erik stirred, and his eyes, so sleep-soft and open, sent affection surging through Charles.

"Should I fetch us anything?"

"Do you want to leave?" Erik asked, the softness fading and suspicion creeping back in.

"I want to leave to get food," Charles said, unwilling to be graceful or yielding, not after he had come so far, not after finding Erik again. "I didn't have breakfast this morning, or at least, not much of it."

Erik's hand slid out of his. Charles chased after it, imprisoning it again. "No, I don't _want_ to leave," he said, once he was sure of having Erik trapped. "But I _am_ hungry."

Erik snorted, even as a bit of the tension of his muscles was subdued once more. "We can't have that," Erik said, his mouth curving up ever so slightly at the edges.

It gave Charles the strong urge to kiss him, right there at that lovely corner of his lips—and there was no reason not to, not anymore, and so he gave into the desire, leaning in to kiss Erik once more. There was no desperation in it, with the hot thirst of their lust so newly slaked: only affection, clean and bright, dancing before them like dust motes in the sunlight.

Part of Erik still hung back—Charles had not yet managed to strike down all of his walls upon walls, convince him that his suspicions and fear were needless—but he would, he vowed. He _would_.

"I shall go then, and fetch some food," Charles said, after the kiss came to an end. He stroked his fingers across the nape of Erik's neck, pleased at the instinctive way Erik turned into the caress. "I expect you to still be in this bed when I return, or I shall be very cross."

"Do I strike you as a man of leisure, Charles?" Erik stretched, and Charles was once again distracted by the interplay of his muscles, both those exposed and those only half-visible through his clothing. "I assure you I _do_ work, whatever useless trappings of gentility you may think I have picked up."

"I have no doubt you work very hard indeed," Charles said truthfully. He suspected, indeed, that Erik worked harder than anyone else Charles had ever met. "All the more reason to take this occasion to rest."

"Very well," Erik grumbled, though there was no real heat in his tone.

Charles kissed him once more for good measure, and then he rose from the bed himself. He was still sticky and soiled with Erik's ejaculation, as well as some of his own, and he looked around in vain for something with which to clean himself off before reluctantly wiping himself down with the edge of the bedsheets.

His clothes were still in a rumpled pile on the floor,. As he dressed he was quite aware of how disheveled he must look. The last time he had appeared in public in such a state, he reflected, he had been an undergrad at Oxford, facing the early morning after a night of rather too-much alcohol, surrounded by a pack of chums in the same position.

When he turned back to the bed, Erik was still lying on his side, his eyes fixed on Charles, and Charles flushed a little with the knowledge that Erik had been watching him dress again, as closely and approvingly as he had removed his clothes. He smiled at Erik nonetheless, and Erik returned the smile, albeit with an edge of fond mockery.

"Your hair looks ridiculous," Erik informed him. Charles's hands went immediately to his head, in an attempt to feel and perhaps smooth it down, but Erik continued, "No, don't. I like it like this."

Charles took a breath, settling himself with the knowledge that if he gave in every time he wished to kiss Erik again, he would never manage to leave the room. Food, he reminded himself. "I will be back shortly," he told Erik.

"I believe you," Erik responded, and if the air around him was filled with a surprise at meaning that, still, Charles thought, it was progress.

"Wait." Charles paused with his hand on the door. Erik had sat up, apparently bent on ignoring Charles's order to stay where he was, and Charles braced to tell Erik to just give over for once. But Erik had shifted to pick the key ring off the table at the bedside and then—then, Charles saw with delight, lofted it up and floated it over to Charles for him to take.

"Lock the door when you go out and come back," Erik said severely.

"I will." The key felt as any other key would feel, faintly warm from Erik's hand, perhaps an echo it the metal of Erik's power. Charles held it tight, and a flicker of satisfaction passed over Erik's face, as if he could feel whatever the metal might feel.

Charles tore himself away from the temptation to stay and discover more. With a last look over his shoulder, at Erik stretched across his bed, watching Charles with hawkish eyes, he managed to get out into the hall, closing the door safe behind him. After that, and a reminder that the sooner he finished his errands, the sooner he could return, sent him hurrying down the stairs and out onto the street.

A glance at his watch had told him the midday hour had passed, although not by much. The morning had cleared into a tentative afternoon, with thin clouds at the edges of the sky, drifting over the roofs of the houses. Puddles stood in the valleys of the cobblestones , and horses still splashed through the rainwater, and so did pedestrians, dodging the horses and each other. Charles turned into the chaos, making for the cafe.

Sustenance procured, he returned home, and while fumbling the key from his pocket and wishing for Erik's abilities, he heard an impatient exhalation on the step behind him.

A young woman faced him, staring directly at him without a trace of propriety or maidenly shyness. Like many others venturing out on such an uncertain day, she carried an umbrella; unlike them, she seemed fully prepared to use it as a weapon, should she be called upon to do so. Her brown eyes fixed on him uncompromisingly, and with a great deal of suspicion that was not wholly unlike Erik.

"Puis-je vous aider?" he asked.

"Peut-être," she replied, not the least bit softened. "Mais—qui êtes-vous? Que faites-vous ici? Où est Monsieur Lehnsherr?"

He started at her accent, as awkward as his own school-taught one next to the silk of genuine Parisian French, and that despite the rapid pace of her questions, which did not slow for lack of fluency. Her clothes were not properly Parisian either, simply cut and untroubled by awkward drapery or whalebone.

"He is inside," Charles said, in English now, and had the satisfaction of seeing his interlocutor also start. "May I ask your business? Are you a patron?"

She laughed. "Hardly. But I should ask what _you_ are doing here and who you are, for I have never seen your face in this neighborhood."

"I am an acquaintance of Mr. Lehnsherr's," Charles said. "Charles Xavier, at your service, madam."

"Moira MacTaggert." The lady offered her hand, an impropriety that would have shocked Charles's mother and delighted Raven. He accepted her hand, and the strength that her thin kid gloves could not hide. "And," Miss MacTaggert continued, indicating Charles's satchel with her umbrella, "you are such a close acquaintance that you are bringing him luncheon?"

He hoped that the flush her innocent question brought to his face was not noticeable—or, if it was, that she would put it down merely to the brisk air and breeze that surrounded them. "We were childhood friends," Charles said. "We met today quite by chance, and have been celebrating the reunion."

"How extraordinary," Miss MacTaggert said, raising an eyebrow. "It seems so unlikely to think of M. Lehnsherr as ever having been a child. One quite imagines him as somehow springing fully formed, like Athena from Zeus's brow, as stony and bullheaded as he is now."

Charles smiled. "Or from the cabbage patch, perhaps, simply appearing under the leaves one day, already grown?"

"Precisely," Miss MacTaggert agreed. "Something along those lines. I refuse to believe he suffered through the indignities of childhood as we average folk did."

"I assure you," Charles said, "Erik—pardon, M. Lehnsherr," a silly mistake, and one that caused Miss MacTaggert to look at him thoughtfully, "was a child just as you and I were, and grew up in much the usual way."

"I suppose I will have to trust your word," Miss MacTaggert allowed. "Well, I will not disturb your party, but might I ask you to give a message for M. Lehnsherr for me?" At Charles's nod, she continued, "Let him know that I am available to meet on Thursday morning, say at ten o'clock? I will expect him then, in the absence of any note otherwise."

Charles's curiosity was piqued as to what purpose such a meeting would be arranged, but no matter how much he might crave details of every aspect of Erik's life, he had no right to inquire further. "I will be certain to tell him," he informed her.

"Thank you," Miss MacTaggert said simply. "It was very nice to make your acquaintance, Mr. Xavier. Farewell." She nodded her head to him, and he bowed slightly in acknowledgment. He stood at the door as she walked away, head high and back perfectly straight. He wondered if their paths would cross again while he was in Paris; he rather hoped they would. There was something about her that he felt would make her company quite rewarding.

Once Miss MacTaggert had crossed the street, disappearing behind a pair of men arguing in loud, rapid French, Charles turned back to the house, unlocking the door and slipping inside. He locked it up once more, and as it clicked into place, he could feel the freedom wash over him in an overwhelming cascade. The rest of the world, and all it thought, and expected, and decreed, was out there; he and Erik were in _here_ , separated from any of it, their own society of two.

He found Erik upstairs in bed, as promised, but with two bottles of wine and a pair of glasses on the stand, the chaos of papers slightly—slightly—cleared away. Erik had stripped off his shirt, and the socks and shoes he had not bothered with earlier, and now sat up in bed, back against the wall, in a worn shirt that bore the stains of paints and charcoals. A book rested against his thighs, although Erik was not reading it; rather, he used it as a desk, sketching quickly across the paper he'd placed atop it. Charles set his purchases atop Erik's bare feet and set to undressing himself down to undershirt and trousers like Erik, clothes folded and set on the bureau near the foot of the bed.

"I'm not one to stay abed, unless I have reason," Erik murmured, having caught Charles's bemused look, gazing up at him with eyes already gone hot, a slow heat like molten glass. He slipped the paper into the book and set both aside, tucked out of the way behind the wine and glasses. "You would not have found the wine cellar without wasting time better spent. And I wanted to make myself comfortable."

"I suppose I can forgive that," Charles said, and charitably ignored Erik's derisive snort. He set out their lunch, a banquet of bread and cheese, apples and grapes from a fruiterer next to the cafe, and had the pleasure of watching Erik's face quicken with interest, his lithe body angling forward in anticipation, then twisting hypnotically as Erik remembered and turned to pour the wine.

"You had a caller just as I came up." Erik gave him a sidelong look and then, after pouring a second glass, his wine. "A Miss MacTaggert? She seemed familiar to you."

"She did, did she?" Erik snorted. He sipped his wine.

"And expected your attendance on her." Charles began to assemble his own meal, warm bread and crumbling cheese, as he recounted the conversation. "I believe she expected you to meet her Thursday, come hell or high water, note or otherwise."

"She would." Erik had curled himself up, long limbs folded gracefully around themselves. His hair had fallen out of its rigid neatness, and Charles found himself, already, aching to disarrange it further. "Her company is company you might find interesting," Charles smiled; that came close to his own thought, "if you would not be scandalized by being in the presence of a known socialist, suffragette, and agitator."

"Is there anything she is not?" Charles asked, and Erik laughed. The expression caught Charles by the heart, open and unabashed and _happy_ , its joy utterly unfiltered and so much like the boy Charles had once known. Erik shook his head, the smile fading to something softer, amused rather than delighted. "A teetotaler, perhaps," Erik said, after a toast and a sip of his wine.

"Raven would love to meet her." More accurately, Charles thought, Raven would be drawn to her as an angry moth to a flame.

"Raven," Erik repeated, his face growing shuttered and far away; a chill entered the air between them, and Charles, concerned, set his bread down and reached out to take Erik's hand in his. Erik allowed the intimacy, stroking his fingers over the gold of Charles's ring. "Is that your wife's name, then?"

It was so far from what Charles expected him to say that he could not help but laugh. "Raven, my wife? No, no, of course not. Raven is my ward—my sister, really, in all but blood. My stepfather had been her guardian, and I took over her care when he died. She is the reason I am in Paris at all, in fact." He was aware he was speaking too much, and too quickly, but he could not help it. She and Erik were the two people most dear to him in the world, and as reluctant as he had been to speak to Raven about Erik last night, he was that eager and more for Erik to know of her. "Of course Kurt neglected her education dreadfully, and I'm afraid she's rather wild, but she's very intelligent, and I thought a trip across Europe would be effective in giving her an opportunity to learn. She has a passion for the arts—she's quite talented, as far as I can tell—I know you two would get along famously..."

He drew to a close, frowning down at Erik's hand clasped in his own. The implications of what Erik said had been slow to dawn on him, distracted and enthused as he was to describe Raven to him, but they had caught up with him now, and his face was hot as the shocking anger filled him. "You—" Charles said, choking a little on the words. "You thought I was _married_?"

Erik blinked at him; Charles thought he could see the guilt behind Erik's eyes, though Erik attempted to conceal it. "Of course I did," Erik said, his tone too light and ironic. "What else would I have thought? I was certain your mother would have had a lovely debutante picked out for you before you were halfway through your degree."

"She picked out many. I did not marry any of them, because I did not love them," Charles said coldly. He took his wine in his free hand, and swallowed some down before setting the glass back down with rather too much force. "I don't know which insults me more—that you seem to believe, despite all the evidence you have seen to the contrary, that I would be a passive slave to my mother's wishes, or that you could think I could lie with you as I did when I had given my promise to another."

"What a charmingly old-fashioned morality," Erik murmured, sipping at his own wine. "It's positively middle-class."

Along with her wedding ring, Mrs. Lehnsherr had worn a locket around her neck, almost never removed. Often it was concealed beneath her dress, only the fragile chain visible, but at times when she cooked, it would fall out, dangling over the table or counter as she chopped vegetables or rolled out a pie dough. When Charles saw his mother, she always wore jewelry as well, but never the same thing; it was matched instead to her outfit and the occasion. Mrs. Lehnsherr's was always the same.

When Charles had asked about it, Mrs. Lehnsherr's hand had immediately gone up to touch the locket at her breast, and a sad, gentle smile had passed across her face. She reached behind her neck and unclasped it, holding it in the palm of her hand for Charles to see. He leaned over, resting his head against her warm, soft shoulder, and she opened the locket. On one side there was a tiny portrait of a serious-looking man with a mustache; on the other, a lock of dark brown hair. _This is Erik's father_ , Mrs. Lehnsherr explained. 

_You must miss him very much_ , Charles said, staring down at the face, try to pick out something of Erik in his features.

 _Every day_ , Mrs. Lehnsherr replied. _He was the love of my life._

 _The love of my life._

That idea had grafted itself in Charles's mind as he stared at the portrait, squinting to catch the similarities between Erik and the man in the locket. The portrait had not been well-done, although Mrs. Lehnsherr cherished it far beyond any care Mrs. Xavier might have shown for her rubies and diamonds, but Charles could see some likeness in the cheekbones, in the somber, pale eyes. Mr. Lehnsherr must have passed before Mrs. Lehnsherr and Erik came to Westchester; he felt sure he would have remembered another person breaking into the solitude of the estate. At the time, Charles had been eight, and Erik eleven, and to an eight-year-old four years seemed nearly an eternity. _He passed not long after Erik was born_ , Mrs. Lehnsherr had said. She'd touched the portrait once more before closing the locket, the tiny catch snapping shut. The air around her ached with love and grief.

The boy Charles had been, and the one he had grown into, and the young man he'd become, still thought _love_ must mean permanence, steadfastness, a refusal to shift or change or diminish no matter the time or distance. And so, when he had first thought _I love Erik_ , even when the thought had been nebulous, with no real idea of love beyond a child's affection for a friend, he had thought as well _I will love Erik forever_.

"Then," he said softly, "perhaps I should be more insulted that you'd think I could marry anyone—that I would follow in my parents' conjugal footsteps—while I loved someone not my spouse."

Erik went still. "You know as well as I do those marriages are business contracts," he said, frowning down at his wine and the bread and cheese untouched on his plate. "Nothing would prevent you from sleeping in my bed once you'd gotten an heir, or felt reasonably sure of it."

"Nothing except my own convictions," Charles said. He fought against the desire to use his own weapons, to cut at Erik the way Erik seemed determined to cut at him. He remembered Erik when they had first met, wild and wary, willing to claw at Charles if it meant safety, the reassurance even a harmless little boy posed no danger. He has not changed, in many respects, he thought, but found the explanation unsatisfying.

"Do you," he said quietly, "think so ill of me? Do you believe what I truly am is what my mother wished me to be? If you do believe this, tell me so, and as much as it would hurt me, I will leave."

Erik hesitated, biting at his lip. Each moment that passed without an answer caused Charles's heart to ache all the more, but he forced himself to be patient. He must not push. Eventually, Erik looked up to meet Charles's gaze.

"I do not know what I think of you," Erik said, a stark honesty coating his every careful word. "All this time we have been apart, it has been easier for me to think the worst of you, to think you must have grown to be the type of man who represents all I hate in the world. But all I have seen of you today... it is more difficult to accept that now." He paused again. "I do not want you to leave, Charles."

Charles let out a deep breath. "All right, then," he said, blinking rapidly against the tears that threatened to form. "All right."

Erik reached out, a shy hand stroking a stray lock of hair off Charles's brow. "You seem so like the boy I remember."

Charles shook his head. "I am not the same boy you knew," he said. "I've grown up, Erik, and I've lived half a lifetime without you. I've gained wisdom and experience and had my own pain. But in the core of myself—in the things that make me _me_ —in that, I think, I am unchanged."

"I am glad to hear it," Erik said softly.

It was a truce, if not a permanent peace. They were both silent for some minutes, devoting themselves to their food and drink. The most comfortable way to sit, Charles found, was beside Erik, back to the wall so that their shoulders and thighs pressed alongside each other, a constant awareness in the back of Charles's mind. They ate silently together for several minutes before they began their conversation once more.

"What were you working on, as I came in?" Charles said. He pressed himself closer against Erik's side, and Erik dutifully wrapped his arm around Charles's shoulder, pulling him in and tucking Charles's head under his chin. It was the same pose they had frequently adopted as boys, sharing a book between them, whether it be Charles's Latin primer, or a history book sneaked out of the library, or one of the dime novels Erik would bring back on occasion after accompanied his mother into town to do the shopping. It was years later before Charles realized these latter were almost certainly stolen, carefully pocketed by Erik in absence of any money to speak of. 

"Merely an idea. A small painting for the gallery." Erik ate quickly, if gracefully, while Charles picked thoughtfully at his plate. "Guyot becomes anxious if I don't send him new canvases when he needs them."

"He must need them often," Charles said, remembering the men and women clustered around Erik's paintings and the enthusiastic discussion of Erik's talents yesterday. Only yesterday, he marveled; not even a full day ago he had not suspected he and Erik were only a river apart, separated by a few twisting streets.

Erik snorted. "I expect the vogue will pass, and I'll be a starving artist again soon enough."

The body under his was hard-muscled but slender, the muscle a skim over Erik's rangy bones. When Charles's parents had been absent—which was more often than not—Charles and Erik had eaten together, food meant for growing boys and not food meant _to keep an invalid hanging on to life_ , as Mrs. Lehnsherr had said, ignoring her mistress' commandments regarding Charles's diet and following her own inclination. She had inclined to delicious dishes and generous portions, urging them on both Charles and Erik with the expectation they would capitulate. Erik had remained stubbornly skinny no matter his mother's efforts.

But in those years afterward, when Erik had set out on his own, he would not have accepted money from his mother, or money from anyone. He would have had to survive only on what he had been fed as an apprentice, and then what he could afford on the meager salaries he earned while working his way to fame. What, Charles thought, recalling those dime novels, he might have had to steal. He kept the protectiveness and anxiety that inspired to himself, knowing Erik would not take kindly to any expression of concern, and would instead read into it dimensions of patronage and condescension. He settled for pressing himself a little more firmly along Erik's side, and saying, "You'll never be that. You're too good."

"The one doesn't always guarantee the other," Erik said drily. "Only those born successful are so confident cream will always rise."

Charles shook his head, but chose not to argue the point further. Instead he slipped his hand beneath Erik's shirt, palming his ribs. Erik hummed at the sensation, and Charles went further, tapping his fingertips one at a time between the bones. Like piano keys, he thought, he could play a sonata on Erik's body. 

Erik took another sip of his wine, but rather than place the glass back by his side afterward, he lowered it to Charles's mouth. Charles opened his lips obediently, letting Erik trickle it onto his tongue. As he swallowed, Erik's pleasure at the act washed over him, delicate, molten gold.

Erik moved the glass away again, but he brought his hand back, and so Charles opened for that, too, licking the callused pad of Erik's index finger just as Erik had done to Charles's cock not so long before. 

"Oh, Charles," Erik said, and Charles closed his eyes against the tenderness of it, moving to take the fingertip fully into his mouth. Erik's breath went ragged in response, but when he spoke again there was uncertainty in his voice. "I would keep you here forever, believe me, but will your sister not be expecting you home again?"

Reluctantly, Charles let Erik's finger slip from his mouth. He rested his forehead against Erik's shoulder, nuzzling blindly as he considered. Erik was right, of course. Raven would be returned from her visit to the Lady Katherine by now, and in addition to her irritation at Charles forcing her to go it alone, she would be dying of curiosity to know of his discoveries on his mission today. 

He was unwilling to leave Erik without knowing when and where he would see him again, however. The sooner, the better. "Come dine with us tonight," Charles said, pressing a dry kiss to Erik's shoulder. "The food is nothing on your mother's, of course, but it is delicious nonetheless. And you and Raven can discuss art while I stare at the walls and pretend to be interested. Say that you'll come."

"Isn't it your responsibility to guard her reputation?" Erik said. "I am no appropriate dining companion for a well brought-up young lady."

"Raven would contest that fiercely." Charles winced, remembering the first days of their relationship, when any attempts to enforce propriety had been met with rebellion, first open and then covert. "She looks on me as some terrible hybrid of a protective older brother and a despot, and I... I try not to be." He looked away, unable to bear the thought of, already, showing Erik he was far more like the other men of his station. "I want to see her have the freedom I enjoyed as a young man, and all the opportunities for learning about anything she pleases. But it is not easy. I fear... I fear."

Erik had gone very quiet. Charles sensed a flood of unspoken thoughts waiting behind Erik's shut mouth, a turbulence that pulled Erik down into silence. He must be struggling with an order to Charles to let Raven be, the affection for Charles that wanted to soften any harsh comment and the stubbornness in Erik's nature that refused softness even to those he loved. _That_ had not changed either, and Charles wondered if the boy he had known had simply grown taller; the boy he had known had also fought against Charles attempting to talk him out of anything Erik had wished to do, or attempting to reason him into better behavior.

 _If I tried, I'm sure I could_ , Erik had said in response to one of Charles's pleas for forbearance regarding Kurt, a rare and much-despised visitor and suitor to Charles's mother. _He hates you, Charles; I don't need your gifts to see that. I hear plenty on my own._ Erik's face had twisted in contempt. _He hates me, too. I heard him asking your mother why you permit us to associate, why she even has a Jewish cook with a_ burden _of a son to feed and care for on top of her salary._

A few days later, all of Kurt's pocket watches had broken, and the expensive bronze buttons on his waistcoat had popped off, and the silver head of his cane had tarnished. When Charles, attempting indignation and failing but still striving for severity, had confronted Erik with his hypothesis regarding these events, Erik had shrugged unrepentantly. _I can't hurt my mother, and I don't want to leave you. But I won't let him speak of me, or my mother, that way, and if you had the nerve, you would tell him to stop._

 _If I told him to, he would tell my mother to fire yours, and she might actually do it_ And then he would do much worse to me, Charles had thought, but did not say. He had never spoken to Erik of the particulars of his relationship with Kurt, and had taken pains almost greater than those Kurt dealt out to keep that knowledge from him altogether.

"Please come," he said, before Erik could speak. "She would be so very happy to meet you, and I... well," he touched the back of Erik's hand, still lying loosely atop Erik's thigh, "If I am to become acquainted with Miss MacTaggert, it would be hypocritical, would it not, to keep you and her to myself?"

Erik turned his hand so that the palm was facing up, and he tangled his fingers with Charles once again. "Very well. I will come."

"Excellent," Charles said, as a smile spread wide across his face.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

It took Charles more time than strictly necessary to leave Erik's house, abetted in large part by Erik's insistence in helping Charles dress and make himself presentable once more, an activity frequently interrupted by caresses, gropes, and kisses neither of them could quite bring themselves to resist.

Still, he made it out eventually, stepping back onto the cool Paris streets. The rain had started up again. The city appeared in every way identical to that which Charles had walked through this morning. It seemed impossible that it should be so. Charles's entire universe had changed in these few hours; how could it be that the world had not reformed itself to reflect that? Not a single soul he passed had any idea that they had lived through such a defining event, the _before_ and _after_ etched in stone on Charles's soul.

He hired a cab to take him back to the Hôtel Goscelin, and spent the ride deep in reflection on the events of the day, distracted enough by his own thoughts that he was taken aback to realize they had already reached their destination.

After paying the driver and sending him on his way, he entered the house. Hardin was there to take his jacket. "Is Miss Xavier in?"

"Yes, Monsieur," the butler answered. "I believe she is working on her sculptures at the moment."

"Will you let her know I am home, and ask her to join me in the green parlor? And perhaps send in some tea as well."

"Of course, Monsieur." Hardin bowed and disappeared down the hall.

Charles made his way to the green parlor and sat down on the settee, stretching his legs out in front of him with a sigh. There was a portrait upon the wall facing him, some ancestral family of the house's owner in an artificial and joyless pose.

 _Why would she make you wear that?_ Erik had said, nose wrinkled in disgust. _You look ridiculous._

 _I don't know_ , Charles had said, looking down at himself. He picked idly at one of the many ruffles that covered his torso and arms. His hair was curled, too, falling at his shoulders; someone seemed to appear to scold him whenever he tried to touch it and adjust it. _It is just what is done, I suppose._

 _You don't even look like you_ , Erik continued mulishly. Charles could see the anger rising around him, stubbornly stewing. _Why does she want a picture that doesn't even look like you? What's the point? For that matter, if she wants to see you so badly, why isn't she ever here?_

 _I don't know_! Charles said again, raising his voice.

 _It's stupid_ , Erik said, which was his ruling on all things that angered him.

 _I know, but I still have to do it_. Charles hated feeling that, in attempting to explain the unexplainable, he was in reality defending his mother. _When I'm done we'll still have time to play_ , he offered tentatively. _You said you'd show me a new place by the creek._

Erik hadn't responded. He'd glared furiously at Charles's ruffles and lace, then spun on his heel after a silent, burning moment and stalked out of the room. Charles ached to run after him, but knew the punishment attendant on disobeying his mother's direct orders to stay put, and was old enough to detect the possibility that obstreperousness would be construed as Erik's influence. He sensed Erik as a vague discontent, an unhappiness unwilling to be soothed by anything. That discontent settled into Charles and drew him inward, to a meditation on the strange, irreconcilable gulf between them that seemed to be made of money and fine clothes and many more things Charles did not quite understand but that Erik seemed to perceive as fully real and insurmountable.

"I will never forgive you!" The words, and a whirlwind of annoyance, heralded Raven's arrival. She swept into the parlor, her skirts swishing angrily where they were not clenched in her fists. "Charles, if you make me take tea with Lady Katherine one more time, or spend even five minutes in her company, I will murder you, and no jury would convict me of the crime."

"Truly, Raven, I apologize. Sit down?" Raven settled down reluctantly, her pale gold eyes flashing ire at him like sparks. Charles straightened, attempting some decorum at least, although Raven refused to stand on even the most scant ceremony when in only his presence. "Before you murder me, perhaps you'd like to hear what I have to say."

"Yes, your friend." Raven looked reluctantly intrigued. "I hope your reunion was worth leaving me to the mercies of Lady Katherine's scheming. I'm surprised you haven't returned to find me betrothed, or locked in a tower."

"It was worth it," Charles assured her. "And," the pause earned him some of Raven's interest, "he will be dining with us tonight."

Hardin chose that moment to enter with tea. Charles gestured for him to leave it; he preferred to pour his own, and the French did it so oddly. The porcelain and gilt pot was warm under his hands as he poured the water over the leaves in their small mesh strainers, the fragrance rising up. _A ritual_ , his mother had said, one of the few things he had absorbed from her, that seemed without artifice or polish. Hardin, after observing Charles's performance with dissatisfaction and seeing that they were equipped with biscuits and sandwiches, departed.

Raven, interrupted by Hardin's arrival, commenced her attack. "You're serious. You are—we are having guests who aren't your tedious academic friends, Lady Katherine, or people from the business?"

"Yes," Charles said, unable to be angry with her, not when she was so happy at the prospect of new society. "But I must beg you, before I go to arrange matters with Estelle, not to assault him with questions the entire night. He will need to get used to you; he does not make new acquaintances easily." 

Raven rolled her eyes, though she was too excited to truly take offense as she might have in a more irritable mood. "Do not worry, Charles, I will not embarrass you or intimidate your poor friend. Whatever you may think, I do know how to behave properly! Is he another Dr. McCoy, then, a silly goose startled by his own shadow?"

The reference was to one of Charles's colleagues in New York, a young scientist who had dined with them on several occasions. In his preferred academic setting, Henry was brilliant, creative and confident, but the company of the gentler sex had an unfortunate effect on his character, leaving him silent and blushing ever more fiercely with every attempt had made at conversation. Charles suspected the poor young man might have something of a _tendresse_ for Raven.

The comparison of Erik to Henry very nearly made Charles choke on his tea. Raven eyed him with some amusement as he composed himself. "Not at all," Charles said, after he had cleared his throat. "I would not at all describe him as shy, merely... self-contained, I suppose. He is much used to his own company, and does not often seek out the society of others." He hesitated, then continued, "In truth, he keeps a very stiff façade, but I believe it is largely because he is so sensitive beneath. He has no patience for the small untruths and injustices that the rest of us are forced to indulge in as we make our way in the world."

Raven laughed—not the laugh she used among others, which was a light, sparkling thing, but her true laugh, the one she used only with Charles alone, boisterous and full. "I can certainly see how he would make a charming dinner companion," she teased.

Charles smiled back at her. "You and he have much in common. I know in time you will get along famously."

"You said last night that he is an artist in the city," Raven prompted.

Charles nodded. "Yes, and a quite successful one, it seems. That reminds me, in fact, that I must make certain to arrange our appointment with M. Guyot for next week. I was there this morning, and he was very helpful, despite my showing up unannounced."

"Your friend is represented by François Guyot?" Raven said. Her curiosity and excitement curled up around her like smoke. "I believe I am familiar with almost all his artists now, from my correspondence with Miss Frost. What is his name?'

"Erik Lehnsherr," Charles responded, and Raven's eyes went wide.

"You are—" she scrutinized his face narrowly. "You _aren't_ joking." Raven nearly flung herself across the sofa at him, catching up his hands in hers and pressing tight with the peculiar strength she always had. "You are not only _acquainted_ with Erik Lehnsherr, _you grew up with him_." The pitch of her voice rose with each successive word, and the tightness of her grip increased until Charles winced at both. "You grew up with him, Charles, and you never told me? You never... you never so much as hinted at it!"

"I am less familiar with the art world than you are," Charles protested, extracting his hands from hers as best he could. "And as for why I never discussed him... it was long before you came under my care, and several years before we even met, that Erik and I had ceased even writing to each other." Raven had, since Charles's mother had married Mr. Marko, existed on the periphery of his awareness of the world, seen but rarely, until Kurt Marko's death had brought them into abrupt, painful acquaintance. "I'd thought the connection dissolved entirely, but meeting him today proved otherwise. He was very happy," Charles edited his way through the conversation and subsequent events of the morning, "to renew our friendship."

"Of course," Raven said staunchly. "How could he not?" She bounced nervously in her seat, and without Charles's hands to crush, resorted to wringing her own. "Erik Lehnsherr, coming to dinner!" After a deep, composing breath, she continued, "Do you think he would look over my sketches? I will be showing some of them to Miss Frost, and the rest of my portfolio to M. Pépin," that was her drawing master, a harsh-faced Frenchman even shorter than Charles, "but to have the advice of—how are you ignorant of even half his reputation? He's been compared," Raven's voice dropped reverently, "they say he could be another Van Gogh, or Cézanne, even though he's very young."

"I..." The picture of Erik frowning down at Raven's drawings—which Charles, with the untrained eye of an amateur and the prejudice of a brother, considered flawless—as a prelude to eviscerating them and their creator, swam up before his imagination. "He is not the kind of man who restrains his criticism," Charles began. "He certainly never spared _me_ from it, and I don't know that he would for my sister."

And yet, he thought, seeing Raven turning this over, disappointment on her face, Raven would bear with discipline where she had an interest. Charles had more than once seen her red-faced and sobbing over a harshly-criticized sketch, only to dash the tears from her eyes, straighten, and attack the paper with renewed determination. Her music instructor—instructors, to be accurate—had given up, after having their instructions and corrections go unheeded, while her French master had praised her as his most focused and tractable pupil.

"I know how seriously you take your work," Charles said gently, "and I know how dedicated you are to improving yourself. But he can be blunt and tactless, and I do not wish for you to be hurt by careless words."

"It is something I will have to get used to, if I am to progress," Raven reminded him.

Charles nodded, acknowledging the point. "You are right, of course. But... perhaps not so early in your acquaintance? I hope that we will be seeing a great deal more of him after tonight, and once you understand his character, I think you will be better able to weigh his words and see the intentions beneath them."

Raven took this with equanimity, her initial disappointment tempered by the probability of more opportunities to come. "Erik Lehnsherr," Raven repeated, shaking her head. "Your dearest friend from childhood, _Erik Lehnsherr_. I had no idea you might hide such exciting secrets behind your stodgy exterior, Charles." This was an old jest between them; Raven had no interest in the academic fields had excited Charles and took up so much of his attention, and she never tired of teasing him about it, that he was an old professor in the body of a young man.

"You underestimate me," Charles said, rising to the bait with his mock haughtiness. "I am full of an excitement and intrigue that you lack the capacity to even imagine."

It made Raven laugh again, as it was meant to, and she took the cup of tea Charles had poured for her, as well as a healthy serving of biscuits. At Charles's inquiry, she began to tell him the details of her visit to Lady Katherine's, managing in the telling of it to turn what did certainly sound like a painfully awful experience into a amusing anecdote, full of entertaining facial expressions and a mirthful twinkling of her cat-like eyes. The prospect of meeting Erik had caused her to absolve Charles of many of his sins, it would seem, as she continued in good spirits as their conversation progressed. 

They separated as they finished their tea and conversation. Raven headed back to the room they had set up as her studio to get in more time practicing before it was time to dress for dinner, and Charles went to the kitchen to inform Estelle of the change in plans for the meal. The addition of a guest was easy; what was more difficult was attempting to give her instructions on what foods to leave out, as his memory of what in that they were was unclear. Mrs. Lehnsherr had always made different food for her and Erik than she made for the upstairs, Charles knew, but he could remember very little of what foods she disdained beyond ham and lobster.

Estelle, who was old and squat, with eyes like black beads set deep into her face, interrupted him eventually, after he had floundered for some time.

"Your friend," she said, "he is a Jew?"

"He is," Charles said cautiously, watching her for a negative reaction, but she stayed as neutral and composed as she always was.

"I have cooked for Jews before," Estelle said with a nonchalant Gallic shrug. "I know what to do. Do not worry, Monsieur."

"Thank you," Charles said, and escaped from the kitchen and Estelle's dark judgments on English incompetence.

Industrious sounds came from the direction of Raven's studio, and interrupting her did not bear thinking of. The gong, and Yvette, would interrupt her when dressing-time came. It was, a glance at the clock told him, a distressingly long time away. If he had been thinking—well, if he had been irresponsible—he would have sent back a note informing Raven and the household of the change in plans, and he would have spent a few more hours in Erik's arms. Halfway up the stairs, Charles caught himself smiling, and saw himself in one of the mirrors on the first landing, joyful and so very openly happy he was beyond propriety. Attempting to compose his expression did little good; the happiness pushed past the confines of self-control, creeping into the corners of his mouth and tugging them up, manifesting itself in a certain set to his eyes he felt must be visible to all.

The few hours crawled by until the gong echoed through the house. Charles sensed Raven's excitement, uncharacteristic; usually the prospect of company at dinner had the opposite effect, dominated as it was by Charles's acquaintance and few of her own. A bath and a change of clothes waited for him, and Charles sank slowly into the first, acutely aware that, all this afternoon—talking with Raven, with Hardin, with Estelle—he had worn his sweat and the scent of himself and Erik underneath his clothes. He still had Erik's saliva on his cock, and the imprint of Erik's mouth seemingly burned into his skin, and never once had the outside world suspected.

He cleaned himself carefully, if reluctantly, and dressed the same way. Hesitating over the trousers and dinner jacket, he thought perhaps Erik would hate the formality of a dinner given only for him, and a dinner made up only of himself and family. Despite introducing Raven to him, Charles felt he should not stand on ceremony; it was, with Erik, a precarious place to stand.

Before he could think much more about it, he exchanged the dinner clothes for afternoon dress, softer-edged and fit for an evening spent in privacy rather than in company. He rang Hardin, who absorbed Charles's state of dress without comment, and entrusted him to tell Yvette to tell Raven that they would not dress so formally tonight. Raven might take that ill, wanting a chance to impress her idol, but then, Raven was not the sort to entrust her good first impressions to her clothes. And, Charles decided, Erik might look on her more favorably if she did not dress in the mode of the current fashion.

She looked lovely like this, anyway, Charles reflected when he joined her in the parlor adjoining the dining room. Raven was a very pretty girl under any circumstances, but she was at her best in more natural, less formal clothing, which enhanced the simplicity and sweetness of her figure and face. Perhaps part of it could be put down to her greater comfort, and the corresponding better mood. 

Her spirits tonight were especially high, of course, excited as she was to meet Erik, although she was certainly somewhat anxious as well. Charles would have been able to tell this even without his gift, for Raven had a nervous habit of gnawing on her lower lip when her mind was filled with such thoughts.

Charles was not without nerves himself. Every minute that passed with Erik's arrival caused a churning in his stomach. Perhaps Erik had changed his mind—perhaps Erik would let the demons of his mind undo all the goodwill between them without Charles there to remind him—perhaps he would not come at all.

But no: Erik had given him a promise, and Erik never broke a promise. Not to Charles, never in all the time they had known each other. His word was solid as steel. He had held Charles to that same high standard during their childhood. It had only taken one time, lying to Mrs. Lehnsherr about some naughtiness he had gotten up to, for Charles to learn that losing Erik's respect was worse than any punishment he might have managed to avoid.

Of course, in this as in many things, Erik's morals were idiosyncratic. Erik's world was split, without any shades or grey, into those people whom he thought well of and those whom he dismissed entirely. The former were due all Erik could manage; the latter he owed nothing, and so he had no qualms about lying to them, or anything else.

Hardin appeared in the doorway. "Monsieur Erik Lehnsherr," he announced, and Charles stood up, heart leaping up into his throat, as Erik entered the room.

It had been mere hours since they had seen each other last, and yet he felt, looking upon Erik, as if it had been much longer. Even in that short amount of time, his memory had managed to somehow reduce Erik's looks to simple handsomeness, rather than the remarkable beauty it was.

Charles tamped down the urge to embrace Erik, enfold himself into his arms once more. He could not hold back the ridiculous grin that split his face, however. He stepped forward, clasping Erik's hands into his own, the only physical affection he could let himself give at this moment. "Erik, my friend," he said, looking up into his cool grey eyes, "let me present to you my ward, Miss Raven Xavier."

"Mr. Lehnsherr," Raven said, stepping forward with all the dignity at her command, somewhat lessened by the trembling of her fingertips. She stared at Erik's hand when he offered it to her but after her first hesitation accepted it, and curtsied in response to Erik's bow. "I'm so very happy to meet you," she said, the hand Erik had taken finding refuge in her skirts. "It's not often my brother brings interesting people home."

The smile Erik gave her now was genuine—quite genuine, and to the unpracticed eye, frightening. Yet Charles, schooled for years in the subtleties of Erik's expressions, saw true affection and amusement, and could feel the warmth of it washing against him, so very like what he had felt just this afternoon; what he had felt years and years ago, when the world had held only Erik and himself. He was prepared to like Raven, if not for her own sake, then for Charles's, having seen how important she was to him, the pride he took in her, the affection he held—love, really, the first person other than Erik for whom he could say such a thing, that he loved them. The knowledge of how much that must have cost Erik, to welcome Raven so warmly, left Charles nearly stunned.

"Please," Raven was saying, apparently bent on performing the honors of the house with Charles standing silent, "won't you come through? Charles has made me swear not to torment you too much, but I have to tell you how much I admire your work."

"Thank you," Erik said, and before taking Raven's arm, produced a small folded paper from his breast pocket. "A small gift," he said, offering it to her. "Charles told me you were artistic; a small thing for your scrapbook, if you have one."

The paper unfolded revealed a quick sketch in watercolors, a young woman—not Raven; that was manifest from the brown hair—sheltering under an umbrella. Perhaps Erik had seen her from a window, for the quick dashes of black and grey of the umbrella suggested rain, and the curl of hair escaping the woman's coif suggested a battle with weather lost. Although Erik had muted the colors, he had kept their richness, in the deep dark blue of the woman's coat and the bright flash of red at her neck, a scarf or kerchief, trailing over her shoulder. Raven murmured over each detail, returning to several repeatedly, before finally saying, "I'm very sorry, Charles, but I need to put this somewhere safe. Can you take Mr. Lehnsherr through?"

"I think I can manage," Charles said, and Raven was so transported she did not pause to inflict Charles with a scathing look or comment; instead, she darted down the hall, trailing happiness behind her.

"That was a great kindness," Charles said to Erik. "She will treasure it forever." They were alone together now, and the urge to touch Erik was overwhelming. It would not be long before Raven returned, or one of the servants, and so he restrained himself to merely a hand on Erik's arm.

"I wanted to bring something," Erik said, a touch of unexpected awkwardness in his manner. "There is nothing else I could offer of such value, and I—I need to come to you as an equal, Charles. Our connection cannot be built upon your condescension."

"You know it never was, for me," Charles said, stroking his fingers along the fine fabric of Erik's jacket.

Something flickered in Erik's eyes, exasperation and fondness mixed together. "I know," he said firmly, "but you must allow me this pride of mine."

Charles could not help but smile at that, for Erik's pride was as much a part of him as the hard planes of his face, or the scar on his right foot, sliced across a rock in the creek when he was twelve. Charles had never seen so much blood, and he had never been more frightened, convinced as he was that Erik was going to die. Erik could not walk back to the house, and Charles had to leave him alone there in the woods of the estate in order to find help. The minutes it took him to run back to the house and fetch the strongest of the footmen back with him had seemed an eternity.

"I promised you a meal, I believe," Charles said, letting his hand fall from Erik's sleeve. "Shall we?"

Erik inclined his head, and Charles led him through to the table.

"You have certainly spared no luxuries here," Erik said as he settled into his seat. It was not quite a criticism, but it was assuredly not praise, either. He eyed the room around them with an appraising air, and Charles felt sure that Erik did not miss a single detail of the furnishings and architecture. Indeed, he likely had a better idea of their worth than Charles himself did.

Charles shook his head. "I know it must seem foolish and opulent to you, but it seemed the most practical choice for our needs." Their address was not particularly fashionable, but Charles had seen the distance from the heart of the city as a virtue rather than a detraction, enjoying the relative quiet and peace. The requirements for Raven's studio space had been another consideration. More fashionable acquaintances in their set would be shocked, too, that Charles and Raven got along with barely a half-dozen servants.

"Hmm," Erik said, not sounding particularly convinced, but before he could continue the conversation, Raven rejoined them, still a little breathless, color high on her cheeks.

Erik gave her a look that, for him, was quite friendly, and even stood to pull out her chair. Raven did not quite seem to sit, but rather almost levitated, her spirits as bright and buoyant as they could possibly be, her thoughts a tumult of joyful agitation at having an idol _here_ , in her house, and moreover someone interesting, and interested in her art rather than the money she had inherited or her relation to her brother. If Erik had been one of Charles's Oxford friends, or an associate of the business, or one of the _beau monde_ whose paths crossed their own, she would have been still and quiet, and miserable in her corset and silks, and Charles would have been read a lengthy lecture on her sufferings by herself, waiting for the gentlemen to come through after dinner, or in the company of insipid women. Raven in pique was not just in her assessments, and some of those _insipid women_ were her friends, and girls of no mean intelligence or accomplishment, but what Raven wanted, they could not offer.

Hardin and one of the footmen came through with the soup. "Chicken and julienne," Hardin said tranquilly, in response to Raven's question. "Estelle has also arranged for broiled salmon, I believe, and tarts. Does Monsieur require anything?" When Erik indicated no, with more grace than Charles had expected, Hardin oversaw the placement of the tureen on the buffet and the distribution of wine. "Shall you be serving yourself tonight, sir?"

"Yes, please, Hardin," Charles said. He strove not to look at Erik, reminding himself that what he took as a matter of course, Erik might take as condescension or patronage. Hardin bowed and left, and left behind him Charles's uncertainty and a certain coolness from Erik.

 _I don't know why your mother makes William and Robert serve when it's only the two of you_ , Erik said that night. He had crept from the servants' wing into the family side of the residence, and then into Charles's room. Charles imagined he must use his abilities to pick the lock in the women's quarters, and any other metallic obstacle between himself and his goal. Which, that night, had been to read a book Charles had purloined from the library, although Erik did not seem interested in reading. Even at seven, Charles had recognized Erik's anger, a simmering unrest that had begun to spill over the boundaries of Erik's body, and knew that Erik's anger was not for him—mostly—but also that Charles was one of the very few friendly creatures that might hear him and try to understand.

 _I don't know why she does half of what she does_ , Charles said. He much rather would have eaten with Mrs. Lehnsherr and Erik, in the snug kitchen with conversation and Mrs. Lehnsherr's stories of Europe and the fairy tales she knew, or the poetry she sometimes wrote in German and recited for them. His mother had eaten only half her soup and two bites of the main course, and had answered impatiently when Charles asked if she was well. _William and Robert just accept it, but they don't... they don't see why, I suppose. I don't, either._

Raven was talking, telling Erik of their travels, starting at the great national galleries of London and the British Museum; she had done rafts of sketches of the marbles there, and had determined to spend a few days at the Louvre for the same purpose. Upon Erik asking after her favorite, Raven immediately replied with the Nike, and said, with a very direct look, "I know that must be the expected answer, as La Joconde is for paintings, but I find in her a... a force of expression, a reveling in her victory over her enemies. I think," she paused, "I think if we were to find the rest of her, we'd find a hand holding a sword, or the head of her enemy."

Erik nodded. "There is nothing wrong with an accepted answer, as long as you have found your own way to it, rather than taking for granted that others' opinion should guide your own." He glanced sidelong at Charles, and continued, "It is a tempting proposition, to rebel simply for the sake of rebellion, and I know many who have fallen for its charms. Conventionality is the enemy of art, but the trick is to make something new and yet still know what is worth keeping."

Charles smiled down into his soup.

He had very little to add to the conversation as they continued, but he was more than satisfied to sit back and watch, buoyed by Raven's high spirits and Erik's affability. He had hoped, more than anything, for these, the two people he most cared about, to get on with each other, and seeing them interact so easily made his heart light. 

"If you like, perhaps I could accompany you to the museum one day," Erik was saying, causing Raven to nearly drop her spoon in excitement.

"Oh, that would be _lovely_ ," she said, beaming at him. "As much as I appreciate Charles's company, I must admit he does occasionally leave something to be desired as a companion in these instances. I beg your pardon, Charles."

"No need, my dear," Charles said. "I, too, find the experience somewhat trying."

Erik said, "I can only imagine, if Charles is anything like he was when we were boys. As hard as he tries to be patient, his lack of interest must always shine through."

"Precisely," Raven agreed. "It does make it hard to concentrate, sometimes."

"It was not my fault you always wanted to work on your sketches or your problems when there was such important playing to be done," Charles protested. "One might even argue you were at fault, for as the elder you knew very well I was not as skilled at entertaining myself as you were."

Erik shook his head, amused, while Raven looked rather pleasantly shocked at his words. "This is a new side of you indeed," she said. "The Charles I have known has always been so comfortable in his own company, or merely that of some boring old tome. I might even characterize him as 'stuffy.'"

"You certainly have not hesitated to do so before," Charles retorted.

It had not occurred to Charles, somehow, to think of how differently he must appear to Raven and to Erik. Erik had known him as a child, young and unformed, and they had been more or less peers; Raven had met him only when he was grown, matured and set in his ways, and in the role of an older brother, a mentor and protector. It was odd to think of it so, for of course in Charles's mind there was continuity of self, no moment to point to at which he had ceased being one person and became a new one. 

Looking back on it now, though, _did_ he possess that continuity? He found it difficult to believe, even with the intervening years of growing up, changing from a boy to a young man, the boy who had played in the creek with Erik and eaten stolen treats in a secret haunt in the woods to the college student to the leader of a great family with a younger, adoptive sister in his charge. The steps between each phase of his life had been taken, necessary and understood at the time, their changes unfelt until he looked back on them.

"What do you do when not being tortured by fine art?" Erik was asking now, helping himself to the fish as Raven passed it to him.

Raven's confusion clouded the air, and Charles realized immediately why: Charles's business in the city ought to have formed at least part of his conversation with Erik this morning, as clearly Charles's only purpose in Paris was not to escort his ward from museum to museum. There was nothing for it; Charles had to answer the question, with Raven looking between them, conjecturing, and Erik waiting for a response.

"I have my studies," he said, "and some work I can do at the university—reading papers, talking with the professors and researchers. Perhaps, after this, I can settle down and work for a while."

"Charles studies heredity," Raven said in response to Erik's silence. "Kurt wanted him to stop and concentrate on the business, but he never did."

"Raven," Charles said softly.

"What?" Raven tossed her head. "It's true."

"True or not, my reasons are _my_ reasons." He rather would have told Erik himself, or have Erik find out naturally, in the course of their renewed acquaintance. Before Raven could say anything else, or an argument could erupt over his reproving of her, he said, "Between Darwin and the others, it's a very exciting field. And you know I've always had an interest."

"Bothering the gardener about flowers and pea plants, yes," Erik said dryly. Underneath his words ran their mutual memory of their own secret, their own wondering over how it was they could do what no one else could, Charles perceiving the thoughts and emotions of those around him, Erik having an affinity for metal things.

 _Why are you here by yourself all the time?_ Erik had been seven and Charles nearly five, not long after Mrs. Lehnsherr had arrived at Westchester. Charles had seen the boy's boredom and loneliness, a heavy, dull fog over a much deeper pain made of loss and grief. That day they had been sitting alone on the sunny lawn, Erik closed in on himself as usual, pretending to frown out at the fish pond but really frowning at Charles, who had just finished shrugging out from under a suffocatingly heavy shawl.

 _Mother says I'm delicate_ , Charles had said, wrinkling his nose around the word. Delicate was for things he oughtn't touch, porcelain and fine silver, but he did not much feel like those things. _She says I'm nervous, and susceptible, and she worries about fits._ He'd hesitated for a moment, wondering whether to reveal what he felt was the truth, to correct the annoyance he could see floating about Erik like a haze. _May I tell you a secret, Erik?_

Even then, instead of simply answering immediately as most people would have done, Erik had paused to think through the question. _All right_ , he said cautiously, after a moment.

 _I think I am a changeling_ Charles told him. He waited for Erik's reaction. He had thought that perhaps Erik would laugh at him, or perhaps he would be scared. Perhaps he would refuse to be around Charles anymore. He thought that was most likely why his mother and father stayed away, after all, the reason why the scent of faint disappointment always wafted around Mother when she looked upon him.

Erik, though, merely looked impatient. _There is no such thing as changelings. They are only in fairy stories. If you are going to insist that you're not a baby—_

_I'm not a baby_ , Charles said hotly. This latter was a sticking point with Charles, for in their acquaintance to date Erik had made clear his unwillingness to play or be friends with babies. Charles therefore made it a goal to follow Erik's example in as many ways as possible, in order to prove that he was mature enough to deserve Erik's regard.

But this topic was one he felt strongly on. _It is true, though. There is something different about me._

Erik's frown had deepened, as he drew his knees up to his chest. _What do you mean, different?_

 _I know what's in people's heads sometimes_ , Charles confessed, looking down at the ground between them to avoid seeing how Erik might respond. The grass was a lush green, and it was cool and soft against Charles's fingers as he ran them through the blades. The dirt beneath smelt rich and healthy, and Charles dug his nails into it, despite knowing it would likely get him a scolding later. _How they feel, or think. Nobody else can do that, but I can._

Erik was silent for long enough that Charles began to worry. _You are not going to tell anyone, are you?_ Charles said, jerking his head up to stare at him. _I did tell you it was a secret._

 _No_ , Erik had said, shaking his head. _I will never tell, Charles, I promise._ He unfolded his limbs, reaching into the pocket of his well-mended trousers to take out a half-rusted nail, one of the many treasures Erik seemed to carry with him at all times. Charles watched with wonder as it began to float, slowly and with much effort, a few inches above Erik's palm. _I can do things, too,_ Erik said.

 _Oh_ , Charles said softly, and Erik had smiled at him then, a small, genuine smile unlike anything Charles had seen from him before, and Charles had been filled with a sudden excitement at the possibilities life held for them.

Truly, Charles had been waiting the whole meal to see Erik's reaction to the dessert. He was not disappointed with the result. Estelle's cooking was skilled in all areas, but her desserts were especially strong. Tonight's tart, an attractive confection of pears and frangipane, was no exception, and Charles watched eagerly as Erik took his first bite of crisp buttery pastry and creamy sweet filling. Erik's eyes closed with pleasure, savoring the taste as he rolled it around his mouth. Erik had always had a sweet tooth, one of the rare indulgences he allowed himself. Mrs. Lehnsherr had taken advantage of his taste, enlisting huge amounts of fritters and cakes and pies in her endless campaign to plump Erik up.

It had never happened; Erik had stayed stubbornly skinny, prone to growing only upwards. He had filled out in the years between then and now—Charles's memory of feeling the muscle woven together under Erik's skin was very clear—but still, the memory of lean years seemed to live on in Erik's body, in the spare, rangy economy of it, all the non-essentials stripped away.

Erik permitted himself to be pressed into another tart, and then coffee. Raven sent Charles a pleading look, and he nodded, indicating she might stay. Custom, even in Paris, said the men must be granted time to talk on their own over cigars and brandy, or the powerful _marc_ , while the women had coffee—or, in this case, the woman; if none of her friends, or a tolerable female acquaintance were in attendance, Raven would generally make her escape as swiftly as possible at the dinner's conclusion and not reappear until the guests had been banished from the house. Now, she gifted Charles with a rare smile and even, without prompting, a cup of tea when she stood up to fix her own coffee.

They talked quietly for a while, Erik mostly of Paris and the gallery, and the writers and thinkers he had met while at Montparnasse. Raven questioned him closely, which led to Charles reminding Erik of Miss MacTaggert, and a promise of an introduction was given. No sooner had Erik begun to glance at the clock, already growing uneasy—Charles saw that restlessness rising up, Erik rebelling at growing too comfortable in such a fine place—when thunder rolled and boomed beyond the windows, setting the crystals in the chandelier to chiming gently. A moment later, rain pelted the window as if hurled from the fist of an angry giant. Panicked footsteps—Yvette or Christine, it felt like, hurrying to close a window left open—sounded in the hall.

"Lovely," Erik muttered, his good mood washing away.

"I'm sure your—" Raven began, stopping at a quick head shake from Charles. Erik would not have a driver, he was sure, no matter his phenomenal success, and thus no horses or carriage, particularly not in a city where quartering them was so expensive. Nor would he take kindly to the offer of Charles's carriage, or the thought of forcing the coachman out in a late-night tempest.

He would not take kindly to any offer, Charles suspected, but with the possibility of Erik walking through the storm and back up the Champs Élysées where he might—might—find a cab not engaged at this hour becoming very real, it was incumbent upon him to offer something.

"I will not hear of you braving that," Charles indicated the storm with his teacup. "You have the use of my carriage, if you wish it, but I entreat you, please stay with us for the night." He hoped very much he was not blushing, that the warmth in his face was the warmth of the room, the tea and the happiness of having Erik here. "If you stay, I give you my word Raven will not drag you down to her workshop at some unholy hour of the morning."

Charles meant it only as a light jest, but he could see that Raven's feathers were ruffled; it was only Erik's presence that saved him another outburst chastising him for treating her as a child. Raven's pride was both expansive and fragile, a puffed soufflé of a thing that Charles seemed constantly destined to trample over, no matter his intentions. As dearly as he loved Raven, there was a certain exhaustion that came hand in hand with living with a seventeen-year-old.

It was the same age, he remembered, that Erik had been when he left. Back then Erik had seemed impossibly grown-up; how odd to realize in retrospect the he had been just as young and mercurial as Raven was now, that he was near the beginning of the process of molding himself into the man he was to be.

Erik was considering Charles's invitation, visibly torn. His instinct, Charles suspected, was to refuse—but he could feel Erik's desire to stay, not only to avoid the terrible weather but even more to remain in Charles's company longer. Charles wished he could express to Erik how deeply he felt the same, but there were no words he could speak; he would have to trust that Erik understood his feelings.

"Very well," Erik said. "I will stay." He did not thank Charles, or call him kind or thoughtful, or any of the things propriety might demand, and for that Charles was grateful, for those were only things that would separate them in Erik's mind, remind him of those fences he saw between their stations.

"I am glad," Charles said warmly, and he sipped again at his tea to keep from speaking more.

* * *

The rest of the evening passed for Charles with a strange cacophony of feeling, his mood split between two opposite poles, the simple pleasure of the company warring with the urgent longing for the evening to go more quickly, an impatience that he knew Erik felt as well, though no one but Charles would have been able to read any trace of it. They both felt the promise that Erik's stay brought with it. It was all Charles could do to behave as normal. Raven, though, noticed nothing, occupied as she was with her own concerns, in the self-centered way of the young.

He had arranged for Erik to be given a bedroom in the same hall as his own, and informed the household that Erik would prefer no attentions. They were used by now to Charles's eccentricities; he supposed it must seem fitting, if still grounds for disapproval, that he would have guests even more unusual than himself.

 _I don't know why everybody is so excited_ , Erik had said. He and Charles were curled up in the corner of the library, behind one of the leather armchairs. Technically they were hiding, as Erik was not truly allowed in the room. The rules were rather laxly enforced when Charles was the only member of the family in residence, but if they were found, Erik would have to go; the silent bargain struck was that no one would go out of their way to check on them, as long as they were discreet.

 _Yes, you do_ , Charles scoffed. Mother was coming home again next week, which as always caused Erik to be more dour and unhappy than usual. The difference this time, however, was that she was bringing someone with her, a Mr. Marko. Her last letter to Charles's governess had contained instructions, even more explicit than usual, of precisely how she expected to see Charles act and appear. _There hasn't been a guest here in ages. It's a big occasion._

 _She hasn't been here since last winter_. Charles recognized, vaguely, that despite knowing his marginal position inside the house, Erik very much regarded the estate as _his_ , and despised intruders, including the house's owner. _How long are they supposed to be here?_

 _Two weeks, Miss Perry says_. Miss Perry had been perhaps only slightly less disappointed in the news than Erik; Mrs. Xavier in residence meant a relentless barrage of criticisms regarding her treatment of Charles, from his education to her indulging him in games unsuited to a young gentleman to her lax observation of his diet. That the criticism would end, and Miss Perry would still have her position—Charles's mother would not exert herself to the effort required to find another governess—did not reassure as much as it ought. _But Mother almost never stays as long as she says she will; I'm sure they'll be gone within a week, back down to the city or somewhere else, and then we'll have the place to ourselves again._

Erik did seem to own whatever space he inhabited, and now he owned the space of Charles's house, stalking across the drawing room to re-inspect the art—a David over the mantelpiece, cameos and portraits in a glass-topped table—before permitting Charles to guide him upstairs. Raven had reluctantly departed for bed, although with the assurance that tomorrow, if Erik had time, he would visit her studio. Visiting that space was a signal honor, one not granted to Charles or to anyone except Yvette, and that only under duress, and Erik, with the kind of sensitivity he pretended not to possess, had recognized that.

"Thank you for staying," Charles said now, leading Erik up the stairs, past more canvases of old Gallic heroes and landscapes. Outside, the storm still clamored, lightning flashing in the rain-streaked windows. "I know you won't, but if you need anything, there is a bell in your room, or you can fetch me." He indicated his door as they passed it. Erik paused by the door, only a half-step, but that was enough to call up heat in Charles's stomach.

It burned steadily as he saw Erik installed in the guest room and returned to his own, as he undressed and climbed into bed. Erik had awoken something in him, made of appetite and longing, and as Charles stared at the dark, occasionally lightning-washed, ceiling, he pictured Erik roaming his room, a half-civilized creature surrounded by a foreign opulence. Erik would strip out of his clothes, setting them aside, he would perhaps stand naked in the middle of the room, thinking.

And then, Charles clutched his bedclothes in his fingers, holding tight, he would put on the nightshirt Hardin had left for him, frowning in discontent at the fine fabric. Then, perhaps, Charles thought, his pulse pounding out the seconds, he would wait until the house slept around him before leaving his room and, the way he would when they were boys, slipping effortlessly into forbidden places, steal down the hall to Charles.

He rolled over onto his side, pressing his flushed cheek against the cool fabric of his pillowcase. His bed had never seemed more empty or more vast, and every time he shifted against the fine sheets he was reminded of this morning, his skin against Erik's linen. His skin against Erik's skin. 

Erik _would_ come to him. Charles was almost certain. Erik desired him—today had made that clear enough —and beyond that, Erik cared for him, just as Charles cared for Erik. It was not one-sided; it was not the foolish infatuation that Charles had hated himself for alone in his room at Oxford, when he would touch himself in the night, his pleasure mixed too strongly with shame to be entirely satisfying. He had already determined for himself by then that masturbation itself was not the shocking vice and sin that society dictated (the science toward that end was mere quackery, and the moral objections held no weight, whatever religious scruples Charles might have somehow picked up during his vaguely Protestant childhood already gone). It was not the act itself that he judged himself for, but rather the futile thoughts he would always eventually return to, despite how hard he tried to dispel them.

But no: Erik felt as strongly as Charles did. Charles had to trust in that, in his own impressions and Erik's own words. It was easy to tell himself, but hard to mind, in the darkness of the night, with the time passing so slowly.

He did not know how late it was, but he had fallen into a light doze, somewhere between sleep and waking, his thoughts (vague in detail, but sensual in intention; his blood boiled hot in his veins) somewhere between fantasy and dream, when he heard the soft creak of the door opening.

He sat up in bed, heart racing in his chest. "You came," he said quietly.

The storm still raged outside, but there was just light through the window that he could make out the outline of Erik's face as he stepped close to the bed. "Didn't you want me to?" Erik said, and his voice was low and teasing, and oh, Charles was already burning with want for him.

"Very much so," Charles said, heartfelt. "Come here."

Erik climbed into the bed beside him, crawling over to kiss Charles deeply. His hands roamed the expanse of Charles's body knowingly, pausing with a hint of surprise against Charles's cock. "You are already so excited for me," he murmured.

"I have been," Charles confessed, mouthing the words against Erik's lips, "very, very excited."

He felt Erik's smile, a fierce, hot curve along his mouth, before Erik kissed him again, a hand on Charles's hip to pull him closer—no, to tug the coverlet down, kicking it off to the end of the bed. A moment later Erik joined him under the sheets, leaning up only to pull his shirt over his head before covering Charles again, rolling atop him.

Charles had not had sufficient opportunity that afternoon to touch Erik all he wished, or to learn the geography of his body as intimately as he could, not as well as Erik seemed to know him already. Now, though, now he could, and he discovered the long run of Erik's body, how those broad shoulders tapered to his waist and slim hips, and the precise curve of muscle at his flanks, the nexus where those muscles wove together in a slight depression near the base of his spine. Erik shivered as Charles touched him there, and as Charles's touch moved lower, still lower, pressing and stroking, and calling up tremors in Erik's body. Already Erik was hard, rocking idly against Charles's thigh, pushing into the declivity between his legs and rubbing pleasurably against Charles's own cock.

"You're excited as well," he said to the hot curve of Erik's neck, astonished at the rough, smoky curl of his own voice. It seemed as if the very air around them had become charged and thick, a smoke itself made up of desire and mutual delight, and it had got in his lungs and changed him, and made his breath and voice resonant in ways they had never been. Erik was looking down at him with hot eyes, that smile curling his mouth again.

"Are you surprised?" Erik asked.

For answer, because he had no other, Charles kissed him. Erik surged against his mouth, licking into him. One hand went to Charles's hip, pushing it open so his thighs spread even more, allowing Erik to rest comfortably between them. Charles moaned, barely remembering to be quiet, although he and Erik ought to be the only souls in this part of the house at this hour of the night. A soft laugh rewarded his belated self-control, although Erik sounded scarcely more composed than Charles was.

"I still can't believe that you're really here," Erik sighed, his breath a warm gust of air against Charles's hair. "Are you sure you're not a figment of my imagination?"

"I am here," Charles told him, arching up against the pressure of Erik's body, as if to assure him with flesh as well as words. He nipped lightly at the delicate skin of Erik's throat, which had the dual advantage of preventing his mouth from letting out another noise and of causing Erik to melt against him with a sharp cry of his own. "Oh," Charles breathed, delighted, "that is the spot, is it?"

Grateful, now, for the size of the bed, he rolled the two of them over until Erik lay on his back and Charles lay sprawled half-above and half-beside him. Erik had always been bigger than him, but Charles had learned early how to allow for his size in their wrestling or rough play, or even to use it to his advantage. It seemed it was a skill that stayed with you.

Charles tangled one of his legs between Erik's own and wrapped his hand around Erik's erection—and yes, he thought with some satisfaction, it was just as big as he remembered, no idealized exaggeration wrought by his memory—and he kissed Erik's neck again and set himself fixedly to the task of making Erik fall apart. One of Erik's hands came to rest in Charles's hair, neither pulling nor even clasping very hard, but merely lying atop the strands, light as a feather. Erik was making more sounds now, low fervent exhalations, quiet and for Charles's ears only.

Charles felt intoxicated, as drunk on Erik's skin, smell, taste as he had ever been on wine or spirits.

"If I believed in God," Erik said, almost inaudibly, "I would thank him for bringing you back to me."

Charles nuzzled lightly against Erik's collarbone. "I never left you. I never would have," he said.

An unexpected tension rose from Erik, and Charles looked up in surprise to meet Erik's eyes in the dark room. Erik was not angry, not yet, but there was a sudden ripple of emotion from him that concerned Charles deeply.

"What is it?" he said, lifting himself up above Erik, so they were no longer pressed together. When they were young and Erik was upset, he had never wanted to be touched, hissing and spitting like a cobra whenever Charles had tried; Charles did not know if that was still true, but if anything, this Erik seemed more self-contained than when he had known him.

Erik looked torn. One of his hands was raised between them, as if he thought to reach to pull Charles back down to him but could not decide. He said, in the impatient voice he used when Charles raised topics he did not wish to discuss, "Do not speak like that. I have forgiven you—we have put it behind us—but we cannot change the past."

There was a hard lump in Charles's throat. "I—I don't know what you are referring to," Charles managed with some difficulty.

"You stopped writing," Erik said after a moment. "The last letter I received from you was the week before you left for England. And then... nothing." He felt angry now, although angry with himself rather than with Charles. "My mother heard nothing from you, other than what she could get out of your mother, and that was precious little. And I could get no address for you at Oxford the few times I went back to the estate; your mother was never there."

Charles did touch Erik this time, the hand Erik had lifted, pressing their hands together palm to palm. "I did write you," he said softly. "Several times, with my new address. One was returned, I don't know the fate of the others. I asked my mother, and she said you'd moved and she had no direction for you."

 _He's the son of my cook, Charles_ , his mother had sighed. He had visited her in London—she would never deign to visit Oxford—and she had had less time for his questions than usual. _If Mrs. Lehnsherr has not give you his address, then I assume she either does not know it, or does not care to share it. And_ , she added coolly, _you are of an age where you ought to focus on your responsibilities as heir to your father's estate, not keeping up undesirable acquaintance._

It had been one of the last times they had spoken in person; his mother had died a handful of years later, and Kurt Marko not long after. And yet it had more significance as the moment Charles had realized the truth: that his mother had intercepted his letters home, that requests for Erik's new direction had gone unanswered because of her desires. In that moment he had forgiven Erik, although he had accepted the impossibility of their ever meeting again, and had imagined Erik hating him for his sudden silence.

"I did write," he said softly, and explained it as best he could. Erik listened intently, his fingers flexing in Charles's grasp. "I knew you had to leave, Erik. When I was younger, I did not understand—I could not. I learned some pride from you, I think," here Erik snorted softy, "and I thought you wanted to leave _me_. I could not understand that you needed to leave in order to become yourself. But I did understand that, eventually, when I realized I could never be the son and heir my mother wanted, not if I wished to be true to myself."

"Your mother—" Erik began, before snapping his mouth shut against whatever angry words he wanted to express. Instead of speaking, he merely shook his head.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Charles said. "It was very freeing, do you know, when I realized that I would always be a disappointment to her? There was no need to force myself to chase after her approval anymore. She failed me as much, or more, as I ever failed her."

When he was a boy, he had wished often that Mrs. Lehnsherr was his mother instead, and Erik truly his brother. It occurred to him only much later that she had raised him in every way that counted—it was she who praised his accomplishments, attended to his tears, who looked out for his welfare not merely out of duty. It was a debt he could never repay, the happiness of his childhood.

(And, too, as he grew, he knew enough to be grateful that he and Erik were not brothers. What he felt for Erik went far beyond the fraternal.)

Erik's anger had calmed some; though it was still there, it had dropped to a steady simmer. Charles squeezed his hand.

"We are both here now, aren't we?" Charles said. "And as you say—the past is behind us. Be with me here now, Erik. We have the future ahead of us."

There were only a few months left before the New Year, and the dawn of the new century. The world was changing—not as quickly as Miss MacTaggert or Erik or even Raven might like, but changing nonetheless. Everything old was new again, shining and shimmering with possibility.

Erik stared up at him, his eyes wide and pale, beautiful and almost eerie in the dark room. "Some day, I want to hear all the details of those years we were apart. I want to know everything that happened to you, everything that made you this man."

"Some day," Charles said, "but not tonight."

"No," Erik agreed, "not tonight. Tonight we have other things to do."

He tugged Charles's hand, leading him back down to the mattress, and Charles acquiesced. They kissed, a slow tender thing, and as their mouths broke apart again it produced a soft, wet sound that combined with their unsteady breaths and the distant patter of the rain against the windows to make a music sweeter than any orchestra Charles had ever heard. 

"Tell me about these other things you mention," Charles whispered against Erik's lips.

"If I did, we would be here all night," Erik said, so seriously Charles had to laugh. It felt good to laugh like this, soft, meant only for the two of them. "Perhaps I should show you instead."

He kissed Charles again, and as he did he began to touch him, long, light strokes across his ribs, each pass taking him lower and lower, to his belly, his hips, around to his buttocks, _between_ them, and Charles shuddered. Erik continued to touch him there, as Charles quaked and whimpered, and whispered to him of his beauty, how he looked trying to keep quiet, trying to endure the pleasure. "Your ass is lovely," Erik said, staring directly at him, and Charles didn't know whether to be more overwhelmed at the obscenity of the statement or the pleasure Erik was pulling from him, touching him so intimately. Erik pressed firmly into the curve of one cheek, testing the resilience of muscle. "Lush," he murmured. "You must have come across old poetry that says what a man would do if he ever got his hands on something so delicious."

Charles had, listening to his classmates illicitly read from otherwise dusty tomes of Latin and Greek, verses of fire and indecency and lust. "God," he moaned softly, and wanted to protest at Erik's laughter, but was too breathless to do much more than submit to Erik's hands, and the images that poetry called up.

"What do you think?" Erik asked softly, still touching him, always touching him, restless and focused both at once, fingers firm enough now to push Charles down against him, rocking them together. "Shall I do some of those things you've read about?"

"I—I haven't anything," Charles said, speaking the words against Erik's collar bone, feeling his body go hot with more than desire and pleasure. Then, more boldly, because it was either speak now or let Erik overwhelm him, "I want to touch you, too. I want to do the things you did to me."

"Yes," Erik said immediately, "yes, Charles, please..."

Hearing the word _please_ from Erik's mouth sent an odd thrill through Charles. Erik, so proud, so self-sufficient, who never asked for anything—he wanted Charles enough to make that plea. Even more than that: here, in this private haven of their bed, Erik could allow himself to say it. There was no weakness here between them, none of the inequality that had caused so many problems for so long. Only love, and honest desire.

He lay another kiss on Erik's neck and began moving down Erik's body, kissing a line down Erik's muscled chest and his flat belly. Erik had released his hold on Charles, letting his hands fall to the sheets beside him, and now he spread his legs, crooking his knees and placing the soles of his feet flat on the bed. Charles settled himself on his belly, his erection pressed down into the mattress, a distant ache pushed aside for now, so he could attend to Erik's pleasure.

Erik's cock jutted out from a thick patch of hair, thick and long and hot. Charles cursed the darkness of the room, for he wanted badly to _see_ , to examine and learn this part of Erik in every way he could.

"Next time," he said aloud, "we will light a candle."

"Next time," Erik responded, "I will have you in my workshop, in the middle of the day, with the sunlight shining through the windows."

Charles gasped and rest his head against Erik's hard thigh, trying not to give in to the temptation to rub himself off on the sheets. "How do you make the most filthy things sound so sweet?" It was a rhetorical question; he did not give Erik time to answer before wrapping his hand around the stem of Erik's cock. "Talk to me while I do this," he instructed, and he leaned forward to take his first taste, licking at Erik's swollen cockhead.

The fluid beading at the top was salty but not unpleasant. As he kissed his way down Erik's length, he tasted clean skin, and the scent of male musk. 

"I will put you on your knees, on all fours," Erik was saying, breathless, shakier than Charles had ever heard him. "I have oils there we could use. I will—will open you up for me, and then I'll take you right there on the floor—"

Erik talked on, a tumble of words as Charles began to suckle him. "You will be the most beautiful thing in my studio," he said, "I will cover you with bites and bruises, all of them hidden under your clothes. Only you and I will know they're there; you will feel them, every time—every time—" Charles stroked him now, slick hand running up and down Erik's shaft, dipping lower to stroke his balls, to test the weight and warmth of them. Erik keened, his recitation breaking off.

"What was that?" Charles asked. He gazed up the length of Erik's body, the trembling expanse of muscle and sinew; Erik was reaching for breath, his chest expanding with the effort. "You had so many ideas, Erik."

"Demon," Erik growled, once he could speak again. He tugged meaningfully at Charles's hair. "If you want me to do any of what I've just talked about, get back to it."

That was the Erik Charles knew, and he laughed to hear it. He returned to suckling and licking Erik's cock, to learning the taste and feel of Erik in his mouth. He took as much of Erik into him as he could, and shuddered as Erik's lust rolled over him, the most vivid and fully-realized thing Charles had ever experienced, so clear he could nearly hear the substance of Erik's thoughts, or feel them with same clarity he could feel Erik's skin beneath him: _You, how are you possible, how are you here with me, how are you so beautiful, how do you look like this, the fulfillment of all my dreams, so lovely sucking my cock, so very perfect—_ And, in this moment, the love and awe rolling off of Erik, filling up the air between them, Charles felt nothing but the strangest, most vulnerable power: of having Erik here, at his mercy, drowning in the sensations Charles gave him, and sensing he himself was just as caught, as tangled up in Erik as Erik was in him.

"Please," Erik whispered, swallowing hard around the word. His fingers had found their way into Charles's hair, tightening, disarranging it even more. What Erik needed took shape behind the word, the aching pleasure needing release despite Erik wanting to draw this out. "Charles, you must—"

Charles let the head fall from his mouth; instinctively Erik's hips followed him, his cock seeking the wet warmth again but only managing to bump against Charles's cheek, smearing stickiness across his skin. "Let go, Erik," Charles said softly—Erik was so sensitive now, so attuned to him that even the breath of Charles's words against his slick flesh was enough to make him whimper. "Let me do this for you."

Erik was beyond words, then, as Charles lowered himself again, filling his mouth so terribly full, stretching his lips as wide as they had ever gone. He wished he could take more of it, but perhaps that would come with practice—and, at any rate, Erik had no complaints, lost as he was in his disbelieving ecstasy.

Erik moaned, a quiet and painfully private thing, as he spilled his seed into Charles's mouth. Charles was acutely aware of his own cock, still pressed unmoving against the linen; despite the lack of touch or stimulation, he was close to his own climax, too—all it would take would be a single stroke, and he would be there, and yet he resisted. He tried to swallow Erik's ejaculate, as Erik had done for him, but he could only manage a portion of it. The rest fell from his mouth, back over Erik's cock and Charles's fist in a glorious mess.

Charles closed his eyes, breathing heavily, waiting for Erik to regain at least some of his wits. He stroked his unsullied hand along Erik's thigh, and down to his calf, discovering quite by accident that Erik was ticklish along his ankle.

"Stop that," Erik said, pushing at Charles with his foot. "Get up here or I'll leave you to take care of yourself."

"You bluff," Charles said, but he came nonetheless. Erik had pushed himself up to a sitting position, his back against the carved wooden headboard, and he pulled Charles in to sit between his legs, so that his back was pressed against Erik's chest, his buttocks against Erik's not-yet-soft cock.

If he twisted his head, they could kiss, though shallowly, barely more than breathing into each other's mouth. But it took more concentration than he had to continue when he felt Erik take his erection in hand.

"Lean your head back on me," Erik murmured into his ear, and Charles did. Erik's chin rested on his shoulder, and Charles knew that Erik was staring down at the sight of his hand on Charles's cock. He began to move it, slow firm glides of his hand up and down Charles's length, squeezing at the top of every stroke.

"Faster," Charles breathed. "Don't make me wait."

"Never." Erik nuzzled at him, a soft breath against the pulse in Charles's neck. And he did kiss Charles then, a hesitant press of lips along the corner of his lips, becoming truer, more direct, when Charles turned his head blindly, nudging awkwardly up into his mouth. As they kissed, Erik continued to stroke him, long and firm, perfect, and just as perfect was his body curved around Charles's, holding him steady as Charles began to rock into Erik's hand, chasing after more of that perfection.

His breath and control ran out swiftly as Erik pulled him along, pulled him along with that gorgeous hand of his and his voice, whispering to Charles of filthy adoration and love and possibility. "Can you come for me?" Erik asked, pressing the question against Charles's trembling skin. "Let me see you come, Charles."

He came as though his climax were yanked from him, pulled out of him by Erik's words and his desire, the haze of unreality around them. He spilled over Erik's fingers, a rush of hot, sticky fluid covering himself and Erik's hand as he thrust helplessly up into the rough cradle of Erik's palm. His world blurred and thinned, and it seemed again as if he could hear Erik's thoughts and feel their particular texture, and he saw Erik's awe, his pleasure that he had made Charles come, that Charles was here with him. For a moment it seemed as if he might dissolve into Erik, or Erik into him, the boundaries of their skin growing tenuous, and it was _beautiful_ , Charles thought, so very beautiful.

Erik held him as he shivered through the last of it, as the final shocks racked him and then as he fell back against the sturdy support of Erik's chest. Unconcerned with propriety, Erik trailed his sticky hand up Charles's trembling belly, pausing over Charles's galloping heart and the sucking in-and-out of his ribs as he breathed, and then his neck, his chin, index finger brushing against his lip. Charles licked at him, moaning at the strange salt-taste of himself, at the knowledge Erik had done this to him, that he lay quiescent in Erik's arms now, obeying Erik's wordless request. _I want to see you doing this_ , Erik seemed to say, in his quickening breath and stiffening body, _I want to see how beautiful you are now that you are ruined for all others._

Charles had no idea. He hadn't _known_ that it would be like this. Now that he did, he could not imagine going back to life without it. It would be famine after a feast; nothing else could ever hope to compare. He had made himself a happy enough life without Erik in it, but he could not live like that now, knowing what he did, having experienced what he had. The loss would be more crushing and total than losing Erik has a young man had been. Charles might still live a full life of work and friendship, but there could never be anyone else for him.

He licked Erik's fingers until his hand was clean, and then he nibbled at the webbing between his index finger and thumb, bit at the fleshy heel of his hand, kissed his knuckles, making love to Erik's hand any way he could. Erik's cock had filled again, hot against Charles's arse, the head rubbing circles into the small of his back as Erik moved. Breathy shallow exhalations filled Charles's ear as Erik held him close; Charles left his body limp, moving only as Erik pulled and pushed at him, giving himself as a mere instrument for Erik's lust. He groaned in tandem with Erik when Erik reached his second climax, defacing Charles's backside as thoroughly as he had his front.

Charles curled around in Erik's arms, and they lay down together on the bed, holding each other in silence. Neither of them slept.

It was some minutes before Erik began to peel himself away from Charles's body. He stood from the bed, leaning over to search for his discarded nightshirt. Once again, Charles cursed the darkness of the room, keeping him from being able to clearly see Erik's form.

"Wilt thou be gone?" Charles recited softly. "It is not yet near day: it was the nightingale, and not the lark."

They had read their way through the collected plays of Shakespeare the winter Charles was thirteen and Erik sixteen—their last winter together, though Charles had not known it then. Already Erik had begun to change, his moods as unpredictable as a roll of the dice. He no longer let Charles hug him, crawl on him, hold his hand; they were too old for such childish things, he had told Charles, with a hot sick wash of anger that left Charles bewildered. And yet at times, he clung to Charles as closely as ever, like a shadow, jealous of Charles's time or anyone else he might interact with.

Shakespeare had been Charles's idea, a grand project to pass the idle days of the winter storms. Nominally it had been for self-improvement, but secretly Charles had been more invested in the idea of something they would do together, and there was little he could think of more pleasant than afternoons sitting by the fire, listening to Erik's lovely familiar voice read out brilliant poetry.

A soft current of nostalgia eddying from Erik said Erik remembered that too. Still, Erik pulled his nightshirt over his head, the fabric a ghostly shroud in the darkness, although he did sit down again, on the edge of the bed but close enough to slide his hand through Charles's.

" _Romeo and Juliet_?" Erik asked quietly, with a smile only partly teasing. "Are we star-crossed lovers, then?"

"No." Maybe they almost had been, pulled and kept apart as they'd been, even as children; even the intimacy between them, in each other's company constantly, secrets shared and sorrows and joys endured together, there had been a gulf between them, spanned by the bridge of their affection. Now, though, Erik seemed more accessible, the careful distance gone, or reduced to one Charles might cross—that Erik himself might cross—to a ground where they met as equals.

"I remember reading the sonnets," Erik was saying now, "and having a rather clearer idea of what they meant than you did. I lived in constant fear you might see something of what went through my head while we read them. They were hardly innocent, and I... I knew enough to know it was not a lady the poet addressed. I thought you should despise me, if you knew what I felt as you read those lines, but I could not bring myself to stop."

"I never could," Charles said. He tightened his fingers around Erik's before Erik could try anything so foolish as attempt to leave. "But I know more now, about myself, about what we've done." He shifted a little, and despite the darkness did not miss Erik's soft, dirty smile at knowing _why_ Charles moved so, his seed drying against Charles's bare skin and the sheets. Although night still shrouded them, Charles felt the pressure of Erik's gaze upon him, devouring him anew, as if Erik were still hungry for him. "Maybe, as a boy, I wouldn't have understood this part of it, not fully. Maybe our stars were more just than we thought, giving me time to realize what you mean to me."

Those same stars would have given Erik time to find himself, to realize his independence away from the boy who had exerted a pull like a lodestone, his power over Erik like the power Erik had over metal things. Erik seemed to realize the same, for he nodded thoughtfully and let that thoughtfulness shape the silence that followed.

"I must leave," Erik said softly, and when Charles started up, a denial on his lips, added, impatiently, "Not the house. But I will not expose yourself, or your sister, to scandal. The laws here regarding sodomy," Charles flinched to hear the word, although that was what they had done, "are not harsh; they do not exist. But there are other ways in which society will judge you, and myself. Let me care for you this way, Charles; it's enough for me to know you aren't ashamed."

"Swear, then," Charles said, "that you'll be down to breakfast in the morning."

"I swear," Erik said, marking the promise with a dry press of his lips to the back of Charles's hand. "Besides, I already made a promise to your sister, did I not? I dearly hope she has some speck of talent, Charles, for otherwise the interview could be very awkward."

Charles choked back a laugh. He felt as if he had laughed more in Erik's company in the last day than he had in years, which was astonishing to think of. "I have already warned her how honest you are in your opinions. She will not expect you to spare her feelings." It was easy for people to underestimate Raven, as young and pretty and vivacious as she was, but she had a core of steel about her. She reminded Charles of no one so much as Erik in that way, and he told Erik so now.

"Until the morning, then," Erik said, and when he pulled his hand away Charles regretfully let him go.

A few steps across the room, the creak of a door opening and closing, and Charles was alone in the bedroom once more. Alone, and yet still striped with the reminders of Erik all over his body, his lips still swollen from kisses. Even his pillow held Erik's spicy scent, and Charles inhaled deeply as he rearranged his body, attempting to find a clean, comfortable place to lie and sleep. He spared a moment of silent apology for the help who would be responsible for the linen in the morning.

He was tired, his body overcome with a pleasant post-coital languor, and yet he could not immediately fall asleep. He thought, instead, of Raven, and how they had planned to journey on to Italy next month, short stops in Florence and Milan, and then a longer stay in Rome. Charles had been looking forward to the trip, for he had never gotten around to visiting before, somehow, and he was eager to see the Eternal City, to see at last how it compared to the classical authors he had spent so much time reading and the history he had studied. And yet now all he could feel was dismay at the idea of leaving Paris—Paris, where Erik's career was, where Erik's life was.

He could not ask Erik to come with them. To come back home with them, when their journey finally ended. He could not ask Erik to give up a single thing for him, he swore to himself. Erik's independence was sacred, and he would not make the same mistake he had made as a boy, of asking Erik to lessen himself merely to stay with Charles.

Could _he_ stay? Charles asked the question of the ceiling, hoping it might answer. He could rent this house, or find another, smaller one closer to the artists' quarter or the university. He had, at least in the interim, plenty of reasons why staying in Paris might be desirable. The great Exposition was to be held in the spring; their stay in Italy might mean missing the beginning of it, but they could return. Raven would not object to Paris again, Charles was sure, not with its throbbing heart made of art and change. He could research properly, perhaps return to finish his doctorate; the University of Paris was experiencing its own ferment, and suddenly Charles ached to be a part of it.

Would Erik permit it? Only Erik could answer that question, Charles reminded himself. He might, of course, visit Paris any time he wished, but to be admitted into Erik's company meant acceding to Erik's terms, and only Erik might decide if Charles offering to stay in Paris might count as condescension. If it did, they still might correspond, they still might meet; Charles felt sure business would take him to Paris, or Erik's fame to London or New York. Even if they might be parted, they would not be strangers.

He drifted off with those thoughts, holding to the comfort of knowing Erik had wanted this as much as he did. Waking up brought with it stickiness and discomfort, but also a rush of contentment, at least before he remembered Hardin would be in, and while the man was unflappable when it came to greeting and then indulging his employer's foibles, nudity was _not_ likely to be met with equanimity.

If Hardin suspected anything when he arrived to find Charles half-dressed, he said nothing beyond asking Charles if their guest was to breakfast with them that morning. Borne up by remembering Erik's promise, Charles said he would, but breakfast would be served as usual. Hardin absorbed that in steady silence and, with a glance at Charles's bed—the covers kicked down and disarranged, as if from a sleepless night—departed.

Charles hurried downstairs, or hurried as much as decorum would allow. Erik's door had been shut, with no sense of him inside, which meant he must be, at seven in the morning, in Raven's workshop. He sensed no distress from Raven, only an enraptured attention and enthusiasm, and there, in the glow cast from Raven's mind, there was Erik, burning steady and strong, his focus like light concentrated through a lens.

Charles felt selfishly impatient for them to join him, an ignoble emotion he did his best to tamp down. He served himself from the sideboard, and devoted himself to the papers. He was halfway through the several-days-old imported copy of _The Times_ when Erik and Raven made their appearance.

Raven glowed as if lit from within. Her hair was tied up untidily, and there were spots of paint on her hands and even the sleeves of her dress—Yvette would be furious, Charles knew, for even in the handful of days they had spent in Paris so far they had already experienced more than one of her frantic Gallic tantrums when Raven refused to obey her dictates—and yet Raven looked beautiful, more beautiful, perhaps, than Charles had ever seen, suffused as she was with happiness and pride. Charles could not help but smile at her as she entered the room.

"Good morning, dear Charles," Raven said warmly, stopping by his chair to kiss his cheek. "Did you sleep well?"

"Indeed," Charles said, ignoring the sudden flash of amusement he could feel from Erik's direction. "I take it Erik agreed to look at your sketches?"

"I did," Erik said. He sat down at the table, having prepared for himself a café au lait and taken some sliced fruit and no more. "I told Miss Xavier that I believe she does exhibit some real potential. If she applies herself with enough dedication, and manages to keep from indulging in bad habits, in a few years she might produce something worthwhile."

Charles raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was high praise, indeed, from Erik, who stinted out such things in the smallest of doses. With anyone else, Charles might have worried he was merely being kind, as a nod to his friendship with Charles, but Erik was incapable of such insincerity. 

"How wonderful," Charles said, meaning it completely.

Erik grinned at him, a crooked thing, full of private amusement. _You can imagine the relief I felt_ , his eyes seemed to say, as clearly as if he had spoken.

"I'm afraid I must beg my leave of you soon," Erik said aloud. "I have an appointment with a sitter this morning."

"Of course." He had hoped, selfishly, to have Erik to himself for the morning, but of course Erik would be busy. He had his own obligations as well, as unimportant as they seemed now. "I hope we will have the pleasure of your company again soon."

"You will," Erik said, his tone neutral but his mind curling warmth and affection around Charles. "And Miss Xavier ought to meet Miss MacTaggert; there is a salon held at her house, near Les Invalides, and if I can secure an invitation, you'll both be invited." Raven enthusiastically petitioned for this, but quieted when Erik added, "In the meantime, before I go, if I could speak to you once more, Charles?"

They did speak, eventually, once breakfast had ended and Raven had thanked Erik again for the honor of his opinion, and his offer to solicit an invitation from Miss MacTaggert—which, she felt sure her brother would accept. While Raven's own mysterious gift seemed to be her eyes, cat-gold as they were, Charles thought it might also manifest in an uncanny ability to read faces or postures, for silence had not quite fallen when she saw something that suggested Charles and Erik wished to be left alone, and she departed for her studio.

"Not here," Charles said softly before Erik could say a word. He led Erik out of the breakfast room and into his study, his own space to answer Raven's workshop, filled with books and curiosities, the desk a tumult of paper. Erik offered an idle comment on the state of the desk, but settled against it anyway, hands braced against the edge. Charles watched him closely, feeling himself stretched out on anticipation, wanting nothing more than to go to Erik and take him in his arms, and have Erik take him in his.

"I wanted to speak to you before you left," Charles said, and, greatly daring, stepped closer. Erik welcomed him, and even more daring, touched Charles's wrist, underneath his cuffs. "I wanted—to say thank you, Erik. And that any time you wish to come back—without Raven's demanding it—you are more than welcome. You will always be welcome, wherever I am."

Erik took a deep breath, but instead of speaking, merely nodded. His pale eyes fixed on Charles, as extraordinary as they had always been, as compelling and inescapable. "And you, likewise. I won't let you go again, Charles. But," he straightened, looking down at Charles now, always and infuriatingly taller, "I must ask you one thing. Perhaps one of many things, but I must ask nonetheless."

"Anything," Charles said.

"Raven said you wanted to make an appointment with Guyot, to look at my canvases." Erik's index finger had begun to play across the back of Charles's knuckle. "Do not buy anything of mine, Charles. I do not wish for you to be my patron—even," he added, on top of Charles's objections, "if that is not your intent. I don't want money passing between us. Whatever work of mine you have, I will _give_ you."

Charles bit his lip against his instinctive protest. After a moment, he said, "If that is what you wish, then of course I will do as you ask." 

It seemed to Charles that perhaps allowing Erik to give him gifts would be the greatest gift Charles could give _him_. Charles was of the opinion that the things he had received from Erik already—the happiness of his childhood, the strength of will to defy his mother, that friendship and love he carried with him even after Erik left—were more valuable than anything Charles could offer in return, but of course Erik could never see it that way, not with the memory of their roles as young master of the house and the son of a servant always in the back of his mind.

Very well: Charles could let Erik be magnanimous. It would cost him nothing, and gain him much pleasure, through how much it pleased Erik.

"Thank you," Erik said softly. He squeezed Charles's hand and then let go, reaching into one of his pockets. He hesitated a moment before removing a folded piece of thick, cream-colored paper. "I want you to have this," Erik said, placing it in Charles's hands. There was an uncharacteristic nervousness about him, mixed with anticipation and warmth.

Charles unfolded the paper slowly, exposing a penciled sketch. The rapidity in which it had been created was evidenced by its rough nature, but despite this—perhaps even because of it—it showed the same depth of emotion Charles had been struck by in the gallery. (Could it be only yesterday he had stood in that tiled hallway, staring at those paintings to find traces of his friend in them?) He recognized himself, transformed by the bold lines and shapes into a creature of sensuality and temptation, eyes closed and mouth open in an ecstatic vision. The sketch ended just above his waist, but there was do doubt in Charles's mind that if it had continued, one would see Erik attending to him in that beautiful obscene way he had done in his bedroom.

"I lied to you yesterday," Erik said into the silence, for Charles could not yet form the words to speak. "I told you I was working on something new for M. Guyot, but this... it is for our eyes only, yours and mine."

Charles swallowed heavily, still staring down at the paper. "My dear..." he said, his voice shaking a little. "Is this truly how you see me?"

Erik's hand fell light upon his jaw, and Charles allowed him to tilt his head up, until he was gazing into Erik's steady gaze once more.

"I'm not so good an artist," Erik said, his fingers curving across the side of Charles's face, "that I could capture even one dimension of all the ways I see you."

"Erik..." Even in the glow of Erik's affection, warm and all-encompassing, he found it incredible; strange, to be faced with the truth, and still find himself almost unable to believe it. He thought, foolishly, that he might weep—that there were, in fact, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, at seeing what Erik had offered up to him. The lines, roughed out in pencil as they had been, thick, heavy slashes here, lighter lines like cobwebs there, all held a truth about Erik, and seeing it was like revelation. Charles breathed deeply through it, and rather than struggle for words he knew would not come—because there were no words, not for this—he leaned against the pressure of Erik's hand, and pretended not to notice when Erik brushed a tear away with his thumb.

"I'll keep this safe," he said, once he could say anything again. He looked at the picture one last time, before folding it up and placing it in the pocket inside his own coat, safe against his breast. Erik observed this silently, and once Charles had the drawing safely stowed away, tugged him back in, close enough that Charles might stand between his legs, Erik's taller frame curving around him.

"Come to my house tomorrow," Erik told him, almost in his old peremptory way, when he had expected Charles to do his bidding because he was older or knew better. "I'll show you my workshop," this said with a wolfish curl of mouth that reminded Charles of what they would do there, "and if you have not seen the neighborhood around the abbey, you should see it. Or we could take Miss Xavier to the Louvre, for her sketches."

"Yes," Charles said, and then, aware of how foolish that sounded, "Yes to anything, everything."

"Everything it is, then." Erik stole a kiss, then, or would have stolen it had Charles not granted it readily, fleeting before the sudden thought of danger parted them. Charles heard nothing but the usual activity of the house around them, Hardin prowling in the drawing-room, but not having locked the door, anyone might burst in on them. It was not, Charles found, that he feared discovery and censure, but that he hated the thought of this freshly-created thing between them being exposed to the world, new-fledged as it was, before he had time to cherish it.

Erik straightened, a wry, reluctant look for Charles, who immediately caught the meaning and the sentiment behind it. The morning grew late, and Erik had his work, his life, that must go on; and so too, did Charles. But, Charles resolved, those lives would not part them. He would let Erik settle into the idea of the two of them together, and then he would ask about staying. The idea held more attractions the longer he considered it, the freedom of a new city, pursuing his own life—a life with Erik in it, where they might shape a place side by side. Until then, he would learn the properties of this new thing between them, and Erik would learn them too.

"Go, then," Charles said, stepping back with a last stroke of his hand down Erik's arm. It was Erik, after all, who twenty years had taught him that it was less painful to take all of one's medicine in a single unwavering swallow, rather than dribbling it out drop by drop. He walked around the desk to sit down, aware of Erik's eyes on him as he pulled one of the thick books toward him, letting his fingers run over the familiar, weathered pages.

"Until tomorrow," Erik murmured, "au revoir."

"Au revoir," Charles repeated. _Until I see you again_. That would be a time measurable in hours, rather than decades or years.

He watched Erik go, his thin, distinguished form disappearing through the study door. Even after he had vanished from Charles's sight, Charles could still follow him, the energy and force that was mixed smoothly with the happy, excited wonder that mirrored Charles's own so precisely, and it was only once Erik was far enough away that Charles could no longer sense him in his mind that Charles was able to make himself push his daydreams aside and, patting his breast once more to feel the hidden sketch in his pocket, finally dedicate himself to the work before him.


End file.
